


What happens now

by cillasstuff



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Castration, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Hurt Jensen Ackles, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rape, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, mention of child rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 11:59:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 59,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4478537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cillasstuff/pseuds/cillasstuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he was sixteen Jensen Ackles was arrested and convicted of the brutal rape of his eleven year old neighbor. There was no evidence, no proof that he was even there being openly gay in a small Texas town was proof enough. After six years of torture at the hands of the other prisoners, there is finally proof of his innocence and he is released to a world that still sees him as a pedophile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was a long journey, but I finally finished! Mostly with the help of my amazing beta masja_17 who is always there when I need her. Any mistakes found are my own. I would also like to give thanks to wendy for running this and for her patience. Jared and Jensen or any of the others mentioned in this story do not belong to me. The art is so gorgeous. Please go [here](http://uke-sama-sensei.livejournal.com/5813.html)and show the artist some love for her work.

No one in his family would answer the phone when his lawyer called. He had been so excited to give them the good news; DNA evidence had been discovered and cleared his name. He wanted to hear the joy in their voices when he told them that he was coming home. Jensen wanted to hear the relief in their voices when he told them that the police weren’t sure who the true perpetrator was, but it wasn’t him.  
He made sure that they understood that officers Sheppard and Roché had been wrong, but there was no answer. Nor did they make an attempt to call his lawyer back.  
Per his request, there had been no message left, as both Jensen and his attorney, Jeff Morgan, agreed that leaving a message like this was too impersonal. Jensen wanted to deliver the news himself, but the longer it took for his family to respond, his belief that he would be welcomed wavered.  
Enough time had passed that if they were interested in their jailed son’s well-being, Donna and Alan Ackles would have returned Jeff’s calls. It seemed that they were going to continue to ignore his existence as they had since his arrest six years ago.  
It seemed that after six years his family’s lack of communication should have gotten easier. When Jeff first took his case after his sentence, his dad would return some of his calls, but that was just to tell them to stop calling. Donna even answered once and said the wrong number.  
Pedophile.  
Monster.  
Pervert.  
Those were the parting words from his family as he was led from court to the unmarked white van waiting to transport him to prison.  
He had wanted to be there and see the expressions on their faces as Jeff delivered the good news; tell them that he was none of those things. That he had been released not because of a Goddamned technicality, but because he was innocent.  
He hadn’t touched that little boy and had told them that. Jensen cooperated with the police and had done everything that his family and attorney had told him too. The problem was that Jensen was a known gay in the small town of Bennettesville, Texas and that alone made him guilty.  
The town’s roots were steeped in tradition, as it was named after someone that was supposed to have fought and died in the Alamo, defending the fort from Santa Ana. According to the town’s lore Augustus Bennette had been a poor man’s Stephen Austin. He lived a similar life; he just didn’t have a great PR, man. The founders of this little town where he had been born and raised believed that since he fought alongside Austin and Crockett, that he deserved to have a town named after him.  
The problem was that unlike Austin, Bennettesville was in the middle of nowhere and had none of the accepting cultures that made Austin so famous. Weird, even.  
Being gay was one of the not so acceptable things in the little town.  
He had told his parents and close friends, and everyone else found out the same way everyone else in small towns did. His parents had told him that they were okay with his choice and him mom even helped him prepare for his first date that never happened.  
When Sheppard and Roché came to make the arrest they marched him off to jail in front of national cameras, his family quickly changed their tunes.  
Faggot.  
That was Josh's favorite insult and taunt after a local boy, Colin Ford, had been raped, and it had been par for the course to blame the gay boy; well the openly gay boy.  
Blame Jensen, because after all it had been established that he liked boys and apparently any boy would do someone especially as defenseless as Colin.  
The boy that he liked so much that he was going to be Jensen’s first date, Stephen Amell and family friend, and potential boyfriend had changed his tune. Suddenly he hadn’t been dating Jensen; the frustrated gay teen had confused friendship for something more. Stephen sat in the courtroom and lied about how Jensen had become angry when his sexual advances had been spurned. He was the state’s best witness, because after all they had known one another since childhood, from kindergarten to high school, so he was believed.  
That one little lie coupled with his sexuality and the proximity of the Ackles, Amell and Ford homes cost Jensen six years of his life. Given the gaping holes and lack of evidence that was presented to the court, it was his sexuality that took the good citizens of his small southern bible thumping town only fifteen minutes to convict him.  
Now here he stood six years later wearing the clothes of that scared sixteen year old boy that no longer fit him physically or metaphorically. He had grown six inches since he first entered this hell hole, and the other prisoners had spent his first week behind bars stripping the innocence from the wide eyed kid. Before his arrest, he had never been in trouble for anything more than skipping calculus class with his best friend, Chris Kane.  
After that first week his first and only cellmate, Sterling Brown, who had been in solitary confinement during Jensen’s first seven days, had in one fell swoop both killed the teen's belief in the justice system and made him afraid of the dark.  
It turned out that all of the stories about how prisoners treated rapists and child molesters was true. Jensen could now verify that this was not an urban legend. The guards and the wardens knew it to be true as well, but they wanted to teach him a lesson about touching little boys, so they ignored what was happening to Jensen.  
Some of them even participated in his abuse.  
He should have been removed from the general population, or gen pop as the inmates dubbed it. But it seems that everyone was waiting for Jensen’s cellmate, Sterling “99 % pure” Brown To come from his month-long stay in solitary before Jensens real lessons began.  
It was a given that the large man was going to claim the new meat for himself, but they found other ways to hurt Jensen that wouldn’t leave marks. Sterling ruled the prison, so everyone was too scared to touch him before Sterling had a chance to sample the goods. No, on thought to move Jensen, until his cell mate allowed (for a nominal fee of course) a train to be run on the scared kid that he was moved for his safety. Of course, that was after he had spent a month in the infirmary recovering from the attack.  
He was torn and bleeding and suffered a broken femur from a kick from Sterling to keep him down. The limp was not so pronounced now, and usually couldn’t be detected unless Jensen were tired, and today he was tired.  
Usually, he only slept and hour, two at the most, but he was so scared that he would miss his wake-up that he didn’t even get that much sleep. He knew that it was possible that the head guard of this block, Kripke would possibly let Sterling into his cell to hurt him just because they gave him the orange jumpsuit yesterday.  
There was a color code in prison: Orange was for newbies and short timers with six months, or less, tan was for the ones who were there from anywhere from a year to life. And then there was the pink. Pink was for the gays. Not those who were gay for the duration of their stay, but those who identified as homosexual before they had been sentenced.  
Add that bright colored clothing with the fact that the prisoners had used their sense of justice and tried and convicted Jensen before he’d set foot through the iron bars, he never stood a chance.  
Solitary hadn’t been much better. It was supposed to keep safe from the other prisoners, and it did, but there was no one there to protect him from the guards. Especially when they were being paid to look the other way, or simply used him as a stress reliever themselves.

He had spent the night in his cell counting the hours until morning when the head guard, Kripke, came to walk him to the holding area where he would receive his release papers. But he still had not relaxed. Jensen didn’t think he was going to until he stepped safely outside those sliding doors that led to the bus that was waiting to take him away from here.  
“I’ve been off all week, Ackles,” Kripke gave him a cheesy grin. “If I had known that this was your last week with us I would have arranged a going away party for you. It’s okay, Sheppard and Roché have a hard on for you, so I’ll see you soon. A technicality won’t keep you gone.”  
It was widely assumed that he was being released on a technicality and not innocence, so no one wanted to see him go except in a body bag and until he was gone. There was still a huge chance of that happening. Until he walked out the gates, he was marked.  
It was funny, many of those who had tormented him were now trying to be his friend in an attempt to get Jeff to represent them. When Kripke came to walk him to release, they all clapped as though he was their hero.  
They were calling along that block and wishing him well, wanting Jensen to get Jeff to look into their cases. The man was good, they thought because if he could get a child molester set free then he was worth whatever he was charging.  
Then there were the lifers who couldn’t give a fuck and chucked urine and feces that they had been saving for the guards, at Jensen.  
The biggest difference from gen pop and solitary confinement was that the guards had to take care that he was not hurt enough to send him to the infirmary, because they didn’t want to lose their jobs. Because they were the only ones to have acces to the prisoners, they would be unable to explain fully how a confined inmate was hurt under their watch. But that never stopped the violence.  
Scared prisoners always sided with their captors and time was added on to already long sentences. So the chance that he could still be hurt was very real. Jensen had given up on God a long time ago, but right now he was praying that they made it without incidence.  
Luck was on Jensen’s side because instead of Kripke’s normal partner Singer, a new guard was in training. .Jensen was relieved that he was the one walking alongside Kripke and Jensen as they made their way to booking and release.  
A sigh of relief was breathed once he reached the cage in the holding area, especially when Kripke walked away, but the relief was short lived. Having arrived first, Jensen was next in line, but there was soon a short line behind him of inmates waiting to be processed, and he could feel the tension building.  
Keeping to himself Jensen stared straight ahead, and while the others didn’t physically attack him, the verbal taunts were just as hurtful.  
“Bet you can’t wait to go to the elementary school, can you Ackles?” A voice he recognized as belonging to Chad Murray mocked.  
“Nah, I think that his first trip is gonna be to the park,” Paul Wesley chirped in causing the young man to tense.  
Jensen didn’t allow himself to be sucked into the game they were playing. He was so close to getting out of this place that he could hear the traffic on the other side of the doors where hopefully his family or Jeff were waiting.  
He'd told Jeff not to tell his family that he was being released, that he wanted to see their faces when they learned the truth. But he Even though he had told Jeff not to, Jensen had been secretly hoping that his attorney had gone against his wishes and spilled the beans, and they were waiting for him.  
There was another reason for wanting his family or his friend to be on the other side of those doors as well. If they were there, he would have a place to stay and he wouldn’t have to go to a halfway houseWith the rest of men being released today. He’d been forced to live with them for six years, and he resented the thought of having to spend another moment in their presence.  
Pressing his back against the wall, Jensen remained alert as he tracked the movements of his fellow inmates in his peripheral vision. To the casual onlooker, it appeared as though the young man was relaxed, he was anything but.  
That illusion was quickly dispelled as he heard the footsteps coming towards him. Sterling.  
This time Jensen’s eyes were closed, he closed them so tight the he saw black spots dancing behind his lids, and he trembled when he felt the man come and stand close to him.  
Even on his deathbed, Jensen thinks that he will recognize the sound of Sterling’s footfalls. The sound of those size twelve’s is forever embedded in his memory. When most people think of things that go bump in the night, their thoughts are of ghosts and ghouls or something supernatural, but not Jensen. Sterling Brown is what kept him up at night.  
“Thought you were gonna leave here without telling me goodbye, sweetheart,” Sterling’s hot breath whispered in his ear. “You’re gonna let Murray go ahead of you because I need one last taste of that tight pussy, Jenny. Besides, I promised Kripke that he can finally play.”  
Jensen was unsure how to react to both Sterling’s closeness and his demand. He opened his eyes and watched as the dark-skinned man stepped away from him waiting for Jensen to follow him to the nearby broom closet. A quick glance to his right told him what he already suspected, that the little weasel, Kripke was nearby. He should have known because there was no way that Brown could get here without an escort from a guard, and this time they had even more company, another one of Jensen’s tormentors, guard Singer.  
If it was a fair fight, Jensen was not afraid of his chances against Brown. because he had ha hit a growth spurt, not only had he grown taller, since he’d been thrown in with these animals, but he’d bulked up as well. The problem was that it was never just Brown. The man usually had either his gang with him or Kripke or the other guards, so he learned not to fight back a long time ago.  
Right now he was still JA32451, and he wouldn’t be Jensen Ackles until he crossed the black and yellow line marked no prisoners beyond this point, and he was terrified.  
Jensen was terrified that he was this close to freedom and was going to die because everyone in this room was against him. If he fought then, the others would attack him, and if he went with Brown and the guard, then there was a huge chance that he would not make it out of that closet alive. But as a suited office worker passed him, he thought that his chances may be better than he thought.  
There was no way that Kripke would chance to be locked up, so if all it took was another act of submission to make it out of here, then that’s what it took. Jensen opened his eyes and looked at the other man, and just as he was going to agree the door of the cage opened, and he heard, “JA32541!”  
Running past the group, Jensen crossed the black and yellow line into the safety of the office and the bespectacled man who had possibly saved his life.  
Jensen took a deep breath to get his breathing under control as he moved to stand behind the metal chair as his savior moved to the other side of the desk and plopped down in the ancient desk chair.  
“Have a seat please,” the man said as he motioned Jensen to sit down.  
At first Jensen was going to protest, but he could tell that the man was not going to begin until he was seated, so Jensen sat down and waited for Henry to begin.  
“Um,” He started nervously and held out his hand for Jensen to shake. “This is highly unusual for me - I’m Henry Smith by the way.”  
“What do you mean by unusual?” Jensen asked as he began to panic. Did that mean that he wasn’t going to be released, that he would have to go and face Brown and both of his gangs? If that were true, then he would be lucky if a broken leg were all he received.  
“It’s just that usually when I process release paperwork; it’s because they’ve served their time, not because they were innocent,” Henry explained.  
Jensen didn’t know how he was supposed to respond to that. He’d been screaming his innocence since the police arrested him six years ago, so he just nodded his head and mumbled thank you for hoping that Henry would hurry the process along.  
“Is your family waiting outside for you?” Henry asked conversationally as he tapped away on the keys of a computer that Jensen was sure had been made in the stone ages, or at least the 1990’s.  
“No,” He answered and felt his cheeks heat up in embarrassment because on what was arguably the most important day of his life, his family couldn’t be bothered to show up. Now he was going to have to endure a bus ride to the halfway house with people who hated him.  
“You’ll get the usual $250.00 and a bus ride to the halfway house but you will not have the same restrictions that the others will have to follow. One of the big differences will be that as soon as you find a job and somewhere to live, you can leave.”  
That was good news because there should be no problem finding a job, even if it were just flipping burgers. Had he been released on parole, then he would have had to stay in residence for six months while being on his best behavior.  
“There are some rules that you must follow for your safety, as well as for Loretta and the others living there.”  
Suddenly Jensen was overwhelmed with the enormity of it all; he was going home. He couldn’t force the words from his paralyzed vocal chords, so again he just nodded letting the man know that he understood.  
“Who’s Loretta?” he frowned thinking that if that was a man’s name it’s no wonder he ended up in prison.  
“She is the caretaker and enforcer of the rules at the halfway house. She’s strict but fair.”  
Sure Jensen thought. If this Loretta was a part of the prison system he was sure that she was strict, but fair he didn’t believe.  
Henry looked up from the keyboard and removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes and sighed. “I know that you couldn’t have been here for six years and not been affected or changed by this place. Once you get on your feet, don’t let it have changed you so much that you end up back in this place for real charges this time.”  
As far as Jensen was concerned, Henry was a few years too late with that speech, but he managed to force the word “sure” past his lips.  
“Here you go,” Henry said as he reached across the desk to give Jensen the envelope with his money. “I took your story to the altar at my church, and the members were so moved that we raised a little extra for you,” he explained as he handed Jensen another envelope.  
With trembling hands, Jensen took the second envelope and watched Henry expectantly. One thing he’d learned was that nothing is free. He wanted to turn it down, but refusing offers of help came with a price too.  
“All I ask…”  
Here it comes Jensen thought. He thought that he was going to get out of here without the smell of someone’s come on him.  
“Is that you come to the church and thank the members who volunteered to help to raise this money for you.”  
Surprised by the heartfelt request, Jensen agreed to visit the church and listened as Henry talked about making arrangements with Loretta for transportation to the church before making his way outside to the bus.  
He wanted to know what the church had given him, but he was not stupid enough to pull the envelope out and count it in front of the others. Once he found a quiet place he would see what the church thought he deserved for six years of penance.  
When the door slid open, Jensen stepped outside to freedom. He stopped, inhaled and smiled as he breathed in fresh air. Even though he was still on the prison grounds, it smelled different. Even the barb wire and the heavy gates looked beautiful.  
Freedom made everything beautiful.  
Not wanting to be cooped up any more than he had to, Jensen stood outside the bus until the others had been processed before he made his way onto the bus. There were several seats free, but Jensen took the one behind the driver because there was no way he was going to be stuck back with the others.  
The majority of the people on the bus had at some point either raped him, beat him or both. Jensen sat down and kept his head down so that he wouldn’t provoke and attack by looking at someone in a way they deemed disrespectful.  
“Hey, Jenny,” Paul called from the back of the bus. “Maybe we’ll be roomies because everyone else has had a taste, it’s my turn.”  
He felt his face heat up as everyone else laughed, but he was not going to give them a reaction and soon he was just resigned at the taunts from the others. He just stared at the back of the driver’s seat as the insults were hurled at him until the driver and a guard arrived.  
The driver slipped into his seat, and the guard slid in beside Jensen and for a moment he was relieved until he saw who the guard was.  
Kripke.  
“Bet you thought you had gotten rid of me huh?” Kripke leaned over and singsonged into Jensen’s ear. “You know that I couldn’t let everyone’s favorite fuck-toy leave without a proper goodbye.”  
“I’m not a prisoner anymore,” Jensen reminded him hating the way his voice broke, making him sound scared.  
“No, no you’re not,” the guard agreed as he pursed his lips, “but you and everyone on this bus are under my jurisdiction. If that doesn’t sway you, just keep two things in mind, the group behind you will do anything I say, and also, the cameras on this bus may be on the fritz. In the event that you’re in court for killing one of them… well, let’s just say it’ll be your word against everyone. Besides, I can’t let you go without sampling the goods. Brown wouldn’t let me have you before, but he’s not here to sto me now is he?”  
Jensen looked up until his eyes met and pleaded with the bus driver who just lowered his head and cranked the engine.  
Ten minutes after they let the prison, Kripke unbuckled his pants and pushed Jensen to his knees.  
As he kneeled down between Kripke’s legs, he thought apparently he could still be humiliated. Six years he’d suffered; he’d been beaten, raped and humiliated and on the day he was supposed to be free of this, he had another cock shoved down his throat. He wished that he was dead.  
The bus ride was only thirty minutes and thank God that Kripke blew his load like a teenager and didn’t want to have to explain why a man in his care was being gang-fucked.  
The house the bus stopped in front of was innocent looking. It was an old turn of the century Victorian, and Jensen recognized the style because in another life he had wanted to become an architect.  
The aging house fit in with the rest of the neighborhood, decaying and neglected, but with a little love it could be glorious.  
When the bus stopped, Jensen tried to make his escape, but the crooked guard grabbed his arm and let the others pass. Once the bus was empty, the sound of the bus driver unzipping his worn jeans explained why Jensen was held back.  
Not this time, and not without a fight.  
“Gentlemen,” a soft voice addressed them from outside the bus making Jensen turn to see who his savior was. “I’m Loretta Devine, the house director. Come with me young man.”  
Jensen bolted from his position where he was trapped between the two men and stepped outside and stood beside the stout dark-skinned woman.  
“Kripke, this is the last time,” she warned with a finger pointed at the guard. “Your boss will hear about this.”  
The smile kind of broke out on Jensen’s face without permission, but the look of Kripke’s face at her defense was priceless, however, the joy was short lived.  
“I was trying to stop Ackles,” the guard lied. “He thinks that sex can fix anything - ask any of them.”  
“Yeah, Jenny will give it away for an extra piece of toast at breakfast,” Chad chimed in.  
For all of a minute, Jensen had someone other than Jeff on his side, and it felt good. It was short lived, though because he could tell the way the woman’s body tensed in anger that she no longer believed him.  
“Come with me boy,” she ordered Jensen. “The rest of you can go through the red door and wait in the lounge for me.”  
Ducking his head to try to drown out the catcalls and the insults, Jensen followed the pissed off woman, hating that she had formed the wrong impression of him before he’d had a chance get to know him.  
“Now I know why Henry insisted that you get the single room even though there was someone else more deserving,” disgust coloring every word.  
He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to respond or defend himself, but he’d been conditioned not to respond, so he kept his mouth shut as he followed her into a small, cramped office.  
“This is not prison, so there is no need for favors here. If I catch anyone in your room, I’ll have you on the first thing smoking back to prison.”  
“What about them?” Jensen asked angrily.  
“You just met me and them. Why do you believe them and not me?”  
“I didn’t catch them on their knees,” she said with a well duh expression.  
“Didn’t catch me either,” Jensen said defiantly. “Kripke made me suck him off before we barely cleared the entrance gate, and what you thought you saw back there was Kripke either using me for payment for something he probably owed the driver. Of course, it could be that the driver is collecting the goods after Kripke had sold him my services. Of course, he’s a decorated and trusted guard so what do you care.”  
Loretta stared at Jensen through his outburst. She did not break the stare, as a matter of fact, it became a threat, giving him one last chance before she continued this conversation. He didn’t break the stare either, and she upped the threat as she picked up the phone and dialed.  
“Henry?” She said into the receiver. She cocked her head and gave a final stare before turning away and saying, “It seems as though we are going to have to do something about Kripke.”  
Oh, God, she believed him.  
The rest of her conversation was lost on Jensen as he let the knowledge of what just happened wash over him. This time there would be no change of heart, her smile as she talked to Henry Smith told him that.  
Once the conversation was over, Loretta walked him to his room and told him what she expected of him. She gave him the key and closed the door leaving him alone.  
Jensen clutched the key in his hand as he stood in the middle of the room and smiled. It was small with what looked to be two closet doors and screamed institution, but it was his. There were no bars, nor a window on the door, or someone in the next cell shrieking at him, and he had a key to keeping unwanted visitors out.  
The room boasted a full bed, a dresser that he had nothing to put on it and a small desk and chair. There was a door near the dresser, and a turn of the knob revealed a small bathroom. A private bathroom. Maybe he was wrong, there was a God.  
Jensen stood there and took in the splendor that was his new room. His. No more sneak attacks in the communal showers and no unwanted visitors. Jensen placed his hands in his pockets and smiled at his good fortune. When he did his fingers touched the envelopes that Henry had given him.  
One had the prison information on it, and it was what he’s been told, $250.00 in the twenties and a ten, but the second from the church, it was thicker. Jensen didn’t get his hopes up because fifty ones would be thicker than twelve twenties and a ten, but fifty ones was not what he found. There were 35 twenties. It wasn’t a lot, but it was a good start.  
Now that the money was counted, Jensen wanted to make plans but he wasn’t sure what resources he had at his disposal, so tonight he’d just enjoy his room. The amenities were nice, but the best thing about the room was the window. An honest to God window that he could look out of and tell when the seasons changed of what time of day it was or what the weather was.  
Walking over to the desk, Jensen pulled out the chair and placed it in front of his window. Once he was seated Jensen stared at the view. It was a small gated yard, and since it was the beginning of spring, the grass was still brown, but the trees have buds, and the only flower was a yellow crocus. It was tiny, but the color stood out in the starkness of the yard, and it was the second most beautiful thing Jensen had seen today.


	2. Chapter 2

Morning found Jensen in the same position. Even though the overhead light made the window surface reflective, and he couldn’t see anything, he kept up his continuous stare. He slept maybe an hour, but the noise from the pipes in the old house startled him awake before continuing his vigil at the window.  
Jensen was well rested, as long as he slept for an hour he was fine. He hadn’t slept more than an hour a night for the past six years because laying in the dark waiting for your enemies to come for you, robbed a person of the ability to sleep soundly.  
Despite the lack of sleep, he was refreshed and was still enjoying his ability to sit in one place without being disturbed or harassed. After warning him that this was the one and only time she would allow it, Loretta had even let him take his meal there last night.  
His trance was interrupted by a soft knock on the door, and the sound made him freeze. Who was it and what did they want? Was last night only a reprieve, because there was only one thing the others wanted from him?  
“Jensen, it’s me, Loretta,” the woman’s childlike voice interrupted his solace.  
With a heavy sigh, Jensen reluctantly moved from his spot and opened the door for her.  
“May I come in?” She asked as though he had the right to deny her entrance.  
Stepping aside, Jensen opened the door wide enough to let her in and walked over to sit on the side of the bed as he waited for her to tell him the reason for the visit.  
Instead of talking right away, Loretta walked over to his window and looked outside. He wanted to yell and scream that it was his, to get away, but he kept his cool and waited until she was ready to speak.  
The longer she was quiet, the more nervous Jensen became because he’d learned that silence was never a good thing. It reminded him of the way the guards had behaved before they sold him to another prisoner or guard on another floor. They often did it to make their lives easier.  
It usually happened when Sterling was in solitary, because, despite their being armed and all, they were scared of the man as well.  
He thinks that he bought Kripke’s last car.  
“Why didn’t you tell me Jensen?” she asked finally breaking the silence.  
“Tell you what?” he asked confused as to what she wanted him to confess. Oh shit, what did Kripke do him now? “What am I being accused of this time?”  
“Nothing, baby, nothing. Why didn’t you tell me that you’d been exonerated? Henry and I fought about giving you this room when there is a parolee who has earned it, but… It’s just that most of these guys would have come in here bragging that they were innocent, but you said nothing.”  
“I’ve been saying that for over seven years,” he told her as he shrugged his shoulders. “No one believed me before and most don’t believe me now. Kripke knew, but that didn’t stop him from forcing me to my knees in full sight of the six other passengers and the bus driver. I just assumed that like everyone else, you didn’t care. My family didn’t.”  
“Is that why you’re here and not home with them because they didn’t care?”  
“To be fair to them, I’m not sure if they cared or not because they couldn’t be bothered to answer the calls.”  
Fuck! He was not going to cry; he told himself as he tried to blink back the tears. The weight of them were as heavy as his burden of letting his family down, and one slipped past his defenses.  
“This was not your fault Jensen and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise,” she told him as she placed her files on the bed and pulled him up into an embrace. “You were just a kid and the adults in your life failed you, but you’ve got a second chance. Don’t waste your life on people who threw you aside when things became too hard.”  
He let the other tears fall as she soothed him. She was not his family, but she gave him what he needed most right now, love unconditional and pure. He knew that she knew or at least guessed what happened to him, but she held him as though he was still the sixteen year-old kid who never had been kissed.  
She held him and let him cry. Even when the silent sniffles became loud sobs, she held him and didn’t let go and for the first time in years, six to be exact, he felt safe.  
When he had finished crying Loretta gave him time to reign in his emotions before saying, “We’re having a group meeting in twenty minutes, so clean yourself up before coming down. Just know that a lot of the things - well most of them will not apply to you, the big one being that you can leave without a chaperone. The biggest one that you’ll have to stick to is that you must be in the house by ten p.m. unless it involves work or a support group. The rest we’ll discuss later because I’m going to have to make up some new rules for you to help you get on your feet.”  
“How - how long will I be allowed to stay here?” he sniffed.  
“Normally only six months, but since you were wrongly convicted by the great state of Texas, you’ll be allowed to stay here as long as you need to. You’ll have to contribute to the meals like everyone else, and I’d like it if you help with the chores, but you’re not bound to do that either.” She gathered up her files and told him, “Now clean yourself up and meet me downstairs.”  
Once he reigned in his emotions, he followed her downstairs and found two available seats left. He had a choice to sit between Chad and Paul Wesley or Justin Hartley. His first choice was on the sofa with Hartley, but when he moved to sit down, he did a man spread, spreading his legs, so they took up the entire sofa. It was his way of telling Jensen without words that he wasn’t welcome to sit there. A quick glance at the other sofa told him that he would not be welcome there either, and he wasn’t sure what his next move would be.  
A quick glance around the room showed him that two men, neither of whom Jensen recognized and Mike were in the chairs in the back of the room, perhaps he should just go stand in the corner.  
As he waged an internal war, Loretta made a sound, and he knew that she was going to say something. He knew that she meant well, but her interference was going to make things worse, so Jensen pushed aside his fears and moved Hartley’s leg and sat down.  
She smiled at his bravery and began to recite the rules to the new arrivals. She started with what she’d already told him about the food and the cleaning and pointed to the duty roster. Even though he was paying attention to what she was telling the group, Jensen could feel all eyes on him.  
Loretta must have noticed, and interrupted her speech, “Gentlemen, and I do use that term loosely, do I need to remind you that you are no longer in prison and those rules no longer apply. If your name is down to clean the bathroom, then you clean the bathroom. If you attempt to force someone to do your chores or even offer to pay them, then you will get points and depending on what you do, a trip back to your cell.”  
“That’s not fair,” Chad mumbled. “If someone volunteers then I don’t see the problem.”  
“This is not my first rodeo, Mr. Murray, so this is my way to keep you all honest. You all are not even a day into your freedom, and you still have a prison mentality. If I see someone doing a chore they weren’t assigned to do then it’s a point for both of you. Now I know you want to know what the points are and how they are earned, I have conveniently posted them next to the duty roster. If you ever have a question on whether something will get you in trouble, then it probably will. You each start with a total of 100 points, mess up and they’ll slowly get you in trouble. Six months is a long time guys.”  
“What’s the biggest point earner?” Paul asked.  
“That’s simple, sex. There will be no sex in this house, consensual or otherwise. Being caught is a 50 pointer. I’d hate to think that someone will go back to jail because they couldn’t keep it in their pants. Also in case you’re wondering fighting is an automatic trip back to jail, so keep those tempers in check as well.”  
“Aw Jenny, how are you gonna survive?” Hartley cackled.  
“Leave him alone!” Crazy Mike Rosenbaum warned from the back of the room. “You bastards got away with that shit on the inside, but I dare you to fuck with him now.”  
“Mr. Rosenbaum?” Loretta asked as she looked through the file she held in her hands to make sure. “There will be no threats or intimidation either.”  
Jensen swears that he saw her give Crazy Mike a small smile even though she was stern with the older man.  
“As I stated before there are rules and rosters posted in all of the common rooms, so I highly suggest that you read and learn them. If you have any questions, Ty and David are both about to be released and go to their lives, so both will be able to answer them for you.”  
Like everyone else in the room, Jensen turned to get a look at the men Loretta was talking about.  
“I’m Ty,” a tall, good looking man with a thick southern drawl introduced himself.  
“And that makes me David,” an equally handsome black man pointed to himself. “If you have any questions, please come to us and we’ll help you through it.”  
“They only have a few weeks before they go to their real lives, so take advantage of them while they’re here. Do you guys have any words of wisdom for the newbies?”  
“Yeah,” Ty said, “Please don’t wait until you’ve racked up 99 points before you realize that you need guidance. Keep your goal in view and work towards it.”  
“Also keep in mind what Loretta just said, that this is not prison and that the same rules do not apply,” David began. “It’s no longer a dog eat dog world. You’re a civilian again. Act like it.”  
“I couldn’t have asked for a better segue-way if I had planned it,” a tall, dark-skinned man piped in from the door of Loretta’s office. “I’m Aldis - Aldis Hodge and I’m your parole officer. It’s my job to make sure that you guys stay on the straight and narrow. Part of that includes making sure that you realize that you are now in polite society and the rules that you’ve lived by the past few year no longer apply.”  
All of the men in the room became silent, and Jensen was glad that he didn’t have to deal with the tough looking man. He seemed to be the type to give you just enough rope to hang yourself and would be glad to send a person back.  
Jensen watched as the P.O. Turned towards Chad before continuing, “You want a quick fuck, then find some little thing on the street, but you pull that jailhouse shit here… especially forcing someone to have sex with you, that’s an automatic 100 points, see in the real world, we call that rape. Some of you are gonna fuck up; that’s a given and unlike Loretta, I’m not going to coddle you because you’re grown ass men who know the difference between right and wrong. The first time you truly step out of line I have a pretty pair of silver bracelets to wear when I escort you back, we clear?”  
“Here are their files,” Loretta handed him the thick stack of folders she’d been carrying.  
“Now that we’ve had our come to church meeting, this is what’s gonna happen now. Y’all are gonna sit here like good little boys and I will call you in alphabetically and tell you what I expect from you. Murray, you’re up first.”  
“Me? Last time I checked Ackles came before Murray,” the blonde snarked.  
“Don’t question my order,” Aldis barked, “now move your skinny ass and get into the office.”  
When Chad jumped up from his seat, Jensen stood up from his and made his way to the back of the room where Mike sat smoking a cigarette.  
“Good luck guys,” Ty told them as he and David left the room.  
“Um, thanks,” Jensen managed after he managed to come up with something that didn’t sound stupid - well worse that what he managed to say.  
“No problem,” Mike told him before he took another drag on his cigarette.  
“The slut and the psycho,” Paul Wesley commented loudly from where he stood just inside the door-frame. “What a pair.”  
“Fuck you, Wesley,” Mike told the other man.  
Jensen felt his face burn with the words. He knew that he’d wasn’t a slut, but it was hard to believe when he thought about all of the men who’d had him even though it had been against his will. He wished that he could throw an insult the same as Mike had, but all he could do and hang his head in embarrassment.  
“Paul would you like to be the first to earn points?” Loretta asked, “Because that can be arranged.”  
“No, mam,” he shook his head and glared at Jensen in a way that told the young man that this wasn’t the last of this.  
“Why’d you do that?” Jensen asked in a whisper.  
“Look,” Mike spoke with the cigarette dangling from between his thin lips. “My first day in the joint, I was scared shitless and I tripped over my own feet and banged my head on the wall. No one saw me trip, all they saw was a crazy motherfucker hitting his head against a brick wall. Right then and there I was labeled psycho and even the meanest son of a bitch in the place was too scared to come near me. That night when all of the other newbies were screaming through their initiation, I was safe.”  
“Wish I’d have thought of that,” Jensen told him as he marveled at the simplicity of Mikes plan.  
“Not so sure that it would have worked for you,” Mike told him as he shook his head. “You were in for raping a kid, and you were gay on top of that. Even if you’d been batshit crazy, the results would have been the same, there would have been no mercy. Those bastards watched your trial and followed your story on the news as it was soap. When it was first announced that should you be convicted, you would be coming there, you were bought and sold within fifteen minutes, and you belonged to Sterling Brown.”  
Jensen could only stare at Mike in disbelief. Lies had landed him in prison, and his life had been dictated and taken out of his hands since the moment he’d been sentenced. Now he was in limbo waiting and depending on others to help him get his life in order.  
“I couldn’t do anything for you, hell no one could. I think even Kripke was a little scared of Sterling. I couldn’t help you then but I can now, but you need to help yourself as well. You’re a big fucker, learn to use that size. Here there’s no Sterling, Kripke or gangs; it’s just you and them. Loretta will tear them a new one if she catches them fucking with you, but you gotta show a little backbone. Get it through your head that you’re not behind bars any more so stops behaving as though you are.”  
Before Jensen could respond the P.O. was ushering Chad out and calling Mike’s name, but the other man gave Jensen something to mull over.  
The next few days was a period of adjustment for everyone, but Jensen learned a couple of things in that time. Mike was right, physically, he was free, but emotionally he was still JA32451. And he would be until he learned to live instead of survive.  
To do that he would need to leave this place. It was nice that he had his room, but he needed his own place. Somewhere he made the rules and didn’t have to avoid minefields in the form of Chad or Paul.  
He could have an entire house to wander around instead of staring out of one window. He could have a garden. The thought of a little vegetable patch made him smile because it brought back memories of helping his granddad in his vegetable patch as a child.  
He needed a job.  
Every morning after a short nap just before sunrise, Jensen walked to the convenience store on the corner near the house to get a newspaper. A computer would probably be faster, but conveniently, there was always someone on the one at the house, so he resorted to low tech.  
After several days of searching, he managed to land an interview and the thought of being on his way to total freedom excited him. The excitement lasted until he hung up the phone when he realized that he had nothing to wear except the clothes he wore from the prison. Well, those and a couple pair of jeans that Loretta had given him that a previous resident had left behind.  
He had money, but no way to get to a store or a mall. Thinking about how he was going to get something to wear, he almost gave up. But then it occurred to him that if he let something like this get him down then he would never get anywhere.  
He’d just have to learn to ride the bus. Or he could call Jeff. Hadn’t the man told him numerous times that if he needed anything just to give him a call? He hadn’t spoken to the man since he left prison, and this was important.  
“Hello,” a soft feminine voice answered Jeff’s cell.  
“I’m sorry,” he stammered, thrown off when someone else answered. “I must have dialed the wrong number.”  
“Are you looking for Jeff,” the voice asked.  
“Yes,” He answered as he tried to decide whether or not to hang up.  
“I’m his wife Hillarie, the idiot left his phone this morning, but he’s on his way to get it now. If you give me your name and number, I’ll have him to return your call.”  
“Jensen Ackles,” he told her before giving her the number of the phone he was using.  
“Jensen… Ackles?” She asked with none of the friendliness from before.  
“Yes,” he confirmed warily.  
“I’ll tell him you called…”  
The promise was interrupted by a deep voice saying, “Hi honey.”  
Jeff didn’t come to the phone. Instead, Jensen could hear the pair whispering furiously, and he was sure that he heard his name. By the second mention, he was in the process of hanging up when suddenly Jeff’s deep voice was on the line.  
“Hey, Kiddo,” Jeff greeted.  
There was a deep tiredness in Jeff’s voice this early in the morning. He knew how much time the man had spent on his case, and if he was doing the same for others, then Jensen wasn’t surprised. He smiled at the sound of his friend’s voice, and he pictured him rubbing the back of his neck as though that action was going to relieve some of his stress.  
“Hi Jeff,” Jensen answered.  
Now that the lawyer was on the phone, Jensen was unsure of what to say. In the past, their time together had always been about his case. It seemed that he was always trying to find the next witness, rereading a police report or going over old evidence. Now that Jensen was free, he didn’t know what to talk about.  
He considered them so but were they, friends?  
“Jeff, I have a job interview,” Jensen blurted out.  
“That’s great Jensen!” Jeff congratulated him. “I’m sure you’ll do well if you don’t let your nerves get the better of you.”  
“I - I don’t have anything to wear and I was hoping that you could help me.”  
“I’ll see what I can do,” Jeff told him after a brief silence. “I’m so proud of you…”  
Jensen’s pleasure at the man’s praise was short lived when he heard Hillarie urging him to hang up. Not wanting to hear his friend lie about why he was ending the call, Jensen decided to end it first.  
“That’s great Jeff, look I’ve got to go, Loretta gets angry if we don’t do our share around here,” he said with a forced laugh.  
They said their goodbyes and Jensen stood there staring at the phone feeling as though he had lost the one constant in his life, and for the first time in the past six years, he felt alone. He stood there staring at the phone as though it was going to provide him with an answer.  
“Jensen, are you okay?” Loretta asked when she walked into the office a few minutes later.  
“Yeah,” he attempted to lie, but the shake of his head told her differently, “not really.”  
He explained his situation and how for once he didn’t believe that Jeff was going to come through for him.  
“I’m on my way to go grocery shopping because y’all eat everything that isn’t nailed down. How about you tag along and we make the thrift store our first stop and find you something to wear.”  
He gave her a small smile and followed her to the car.  
“I understand that you want to be prepared for your job interview, but don’t give up on Jeff,” Loretta encouraged.  
“I understand that he has more than my case, it’s just that he’s all I had for the past six years,” Jensen explained.  
“While you were locked up, you focused on his visits, they gave you something to look forward to, but in the real world, he has obligations both professional and familial. Once you have a job you’ll have something to fill your time, and you’ll make friends and it won’t seem that the time in between you see Jeff will be that long.”  
Jensen let her words sink and realized that she was right. Jeff had more than him in his life, and Jensen would have to adjust. The conversation lightened his mood so much that he and Loretta were laughing and joking by the time they reached the thrift store.  
The trip to the thrift store provided Jensen with something he hadn’t had in a long time, fun. There were serious fashion changes in the past six years, but Jensen went for the classics, jeans, khakis and button downs. Only spending a little over sixty dollars he managed to get a great start on a new wardrobe and find a great MP3 player with some of his favorite music already downloaded.  
The mood in the car on the way to the local Piggly Wiggly was a far cry from their earlier car ride. Jensen was feeling good about his purchases and Loretta was trying to educate him on what was and was not good music. Jensen goaded her by telling her that he had no clue what she was talking about. He left out the fact that he and his friend Chris sang some of the songs she mentioned when they’d played some local gigs.  
He was laughing and giggling and for once he felt carefree and none of his baggage was there with him. The carefree feeling carried into the store where he was able to choose what he wanted to eat. He and Loretta had a list they followed but because Jensen was there, and he had the extra money, without the threat of someone stealing it, Jensen was able to purchase fresh fruit that he hadn’t been able to enjoy for years.  
He’d told Loretta about the money from Henry’s church, and she’d suggested that he set up a bank account so that he wouldn’t have the extra cash on him.  
The others would soon realize that he had more than the allotment that was given to him by the state, and she worried about him. Sure the person taking it would be punished but he could still get hurt. If he got the job, then they would think that the money was from his pay, but until then she wanted him to be safe.  
Jensen took her words of caution to heart and agreed to go to the bank tomorrow after his interview. He put some of his things back and limited himself to some fresh fruit, candy and coffee.  
“Jensen, will you go to the next aisle and grab some sugar and flour and we’ll be through,” Loretta asked him.  
“Sure, no problem,” he told her before he sprinted to the adjoining aisle.  
Smells of chocolate and spices greeted him as he stepped into the aisle dedicated to all things baking. As he concentrated on trying to decide the difference between self-rising and all-purpose flour, a voice at the end of the lane stopped him dead in his tracks.  
“Mama?”  
Standing there in the middle of the Piggly Wiggly was his mother, his brother Josh and a pretty blonde girl who looked just like the old pictures of his mother. She had to be his little sister, Mackenzie. They were talking to a woman he didn’t recognize, but judging, by the way, his mom was smiling at her she was probably someone from church.  
When he didn’t get a response, Jensen walked closer and repeated a little louder, “Mama.”  
Donna Ackles turned and looked at him and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know you,” before turning back to her conversation as though Jensen never spoke.  
“It’s me, Jensen,” he identified himself. He knew that he’d changed a lot since she’d last seen him. Perhaps she didn’t know who he was.  
“I don’t know a Jensen,” she told him with a sneer on her face. “You must have me confused with someone else.”  
“But…” he started.  
“She said she didn’t know you, asshole so back off,” Josh barked at him as he pushed his sister behind him as though Jensen was going to attack her.  
Despite the way his family was treating him, Jensen felt the desire to make them understand that they had no reason to be ashamed of him because he was innocent. He wanted to explain that he’d been released because everyone had lied and that now he could come home, and they could be a family again. He wanted to but as he stared at his family he barely recognized them because the hatred on their faces transformed them into people that he didn’t know, the words stuck in his throat.  
As he tried to force them out, he felt a hand on his shoulder from behind.  
“Jensen, I think that you’re confusing these people for those who once cared for you. Let’s leave them alone, we’re finished here.”  
Numbly, Jensen allowed Loretta to lead him towards the cash registers. Hopelessly, he threw a last look over his shoulder hoping that one of them would change their mind and call out to him, but no one did.  
He could feel the cashier’s eyes on him as he helped Loretta place their items on the belt, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t until he was outside, and he saw his reflection in the car window that he realized that he was crying. All of the hopes he’d pinned on his family accepting him back died at the baking aisle when his mother denied knowing him.  
Had Jeff been in contact with them, did they know why he’d been released? Surely they couldn’t know that and still not care. Josh’s reaction wasn’t a surprise. Not really. Josh’s parting words in court told Jensen what his brother thought of him, but if he were honest, it still hurt.  
“They’ll come around,” Loretta tried to reassure him as they loaded the mini-van, “we can call them later and explain to them that you’re innocent, and you’ll be back home where you belong.”  
Pasting a smile on his face, Jensen removed the last bag from the shopping cart and took it to the cart corral and was back at the van when he was slammed into the side of the vehicle.  
“What the fuck were you trying to accomplish,” a furious Josh Ackles snarled at him.  
“You can talk to him, but I’ll be damned if you think you’re going to hurt him!” Loretta said as she stepped between the two men, “now let him go.”  
The indecision showed on the older Ackles face, when the woman advanced towards him, he stepped away from Jensen.  
“Is this good?” he sneered. When she nodded he turned back towards his brother, “now why are you here? You’re supposed to be still in jail.”  
“Where else am I going to go, Josh?” Jensen asked in a small tinny voice. “I tried to call you before I was released to let you guys know, to come hopefully home, but no one answered Jeff’s calls.”  
“Why would we talk to him, and open wounds that we were trying our best to close. Haven’t you caused use enough hurt and embarrassment? Just. Go. Away.”  
“But… I” Jensen stuttered and stopped as Josh moved closer to him and made him feel threatened. Everything that he’d wanted to tell his brother fled his mind and was filled with images of Sterling Brown causing him to hyperventilate.  
“Look at you,” his brother spat, “when there’s a little boy involved your faggot ass is all big and bad, but let a man get in your face you cry like a little girl. It took mom a long time to be able to face people - to leave the house even. Now that she’s finally comfortable being in public you show up and ruin her life. Again. Do us a favor and stay away from us.”  
“That’s enough!” Loretta told Josh as she moved to usher Jensen into the van.  
Jensen didn’t watch as his brother walked away he just stared ahead as Loretta got in and drove away. The ride home was silent, the earlier excitement destroyed under Josh’s attack as Jensen tried to pull himself together before they arrived back at the house.  
Loretta called ahead and asked that Ty and David help her with unloading the van while she took care of Jensen.  
She escorted the young man to his room and laid him on his bed without any protest. Once she was sure that he was alright she headed downstairs to her office where she placed a call to Jeff and persuaded him give her Josh Ackles cell number. It was the time she and that young man have a come to Jesus meeting.  
Loretta had closed the curtains, making it dark in the room when Jensen woke an hour later, causing him to panic because he forgot where he was. When he saw the light peeking through a small opening in the curtains, he remembered. He was not back in his cell waiting in the dark for Kripke to send someone in to him.  
A quick glance at his watch told him that it was almost time for dinner so after a quick trip to the bathroom, he made his way downstairs hoping that he wasn’t too late to help. He wouldn’t get any points, but he didn’t want the others to think that Loretta was giving him special treatment.  
As he entered the kitchen, he could hear laughter and the camaraderie of the guys as they prepared the evening meal. It all stopped when he entered the room.  
“Well, it looks as though the pretty princess has decided to join us after the work has been done, huh?” Chad sneered. “Well it earned you some points and even your savior can’t stop that.”  
“Enough, Mr. Murray,” Loretta snapped. “We will respect one another here and if you keep it up, you’ll see some points on the books for you.”  
“Just take a seat brother,” Ty told Jensen, “we’re almost finished here.  
Not wanting to cause any more trouble, Jensen made his way to the dining area to sit at the large table, and as Loretta was reaching for something in the refrigerator, Paul and Chad took advantage. Both men bumped into him. They both laughed knowing that he was not going to retaliate, but the laughter died quickly when Mike shot them a threatening look.  
“Dinner’s ready,” Mike announced once Chad and Paul scattered. “Jen, I got you, just save a seat for me.”  
Once Mike placed a plate in front of him, Jensen concentrated on his food and listened to stories from Ty, David and Mike as he let the day’s event go for the moment.  
After dinner, Jensen made sure that he stuck around to help with the dishes. Cleaning the kitchen was a chore for everyone and Jensen didn’t want to beg off because he had a fucking emotional day. He wouldn’t share with anyone here, one of the first things you learned in prison was not to trust anyone because that would get you killed or make you wish you had been.  
“You are gonna have to toughen up, man,” Mike informed him as they sat on the large front porch after they finished kitchen duty. “I don’t know what happened today, but you’ve got a private room, you hold that shit in until you close that door so these fuckers won’t have anything to use against you.”  
Sucking in a lungful of air to give himself time to collect his thoughts, Jensen looked at Mike and wondered if he could trust the man.  
“I can see everything you’re thinking on your face right now man,” Mike laughed. “This ain’t prison and I don’t need anything from you.”  
“It’s just - I saw my family today and my mom pretended that she didn’t know me,” Jensen blurted out.  
“Fuck man that’s rough. I don’t know if I could have made it if I didn’t have someone on the outside,” Mike shook his head in disbelief. “You got an early release - that has to mean something to them. Per…”  
“That’s just it,” Jensen interrupted, “it wasn’t an early release, I was exonerated, my charges were dropped. Jeff uncovered DNA evidence that proved that I couldn’t have done what they claimed that I did.”  
“Fuck man! Wait,” Mike said as though the thought just occurred to him, “if you had your charges dropped why you are here?”  
“Because I have nowhere else to go,” Jensen put his head down so that Mike couldn’t see his embarrassment before continuing softly, “my family didn’t want me.”  
“That’s a whole new level of fucked up.”  
“What about you?” Jensen asked. “Where will you go in six months?”  
“I’ll live with my boyfriend, Tom.”  
“You’ve been locked up what, six-seven years? Do you think that your boyfriend would wait for you?”  
“I’m in here because of Tom. He’d just graduated law school, and we decided to celebrate. Tom had a friend who was able to get us our pharmacy, we had some roxy, and some weed. A lot of weed. We were driving, and the car wasn’t so steady on the road, so they pulled us over. When they found our stash, I was sober enough to say that it was all mine. Even though in was on the seat beside us, I told the officers that Tom didn’t know it was there. As long as they had someone confessing, they didn’t care.”  
“Why would you do something so stupid? If he loved you so much, how could he let you? Your Tom probably forgot about you by the time Kripke turned the key in the lock,” Jensen huffed.  
“Nah, he came to see me every week. He’d just graduated first in his law class and had passed the bar on his first try. There were firms cutting each other’s throats to get him, and I wasn’t going to let him throw that away over a stupid mistake.”  
“And you think he loved you enough to wait?”  
“It’s been almost a decade Jensen and I’m sure he’s fucked someone other than his right hand, but that’s just sex. What we have is so much more than that. One day Jensen, you’ll know that kind of love and when you do, you’ll understand the sacrifice.”  
“See that’s how I know that you’re wrong, because who’d want someone as used to me?”

The next day Jensen was nervous. He had his first interview at a small insurance office. After days of being locked in solitary, Jensen discovered that he could escape by getting his GED, and the next logical step was college. There was no way that he was going to get the degree in architecture as sixteen year old Jensen had dreamed of, so he settled for a business degree.  
He and Loretta had spent the night making his résumé look as good as possible, but there was no meat to it, and that had Jensen worried. He knew that he was going to explain why he had never had so much as a job bagging groceries at the Piggly Wiggly. The only thing he could do was explain his wrongful conviction, and he wasn’t sure that he was going to be able to get through that.  
“Mr. Ackles, you’re next,” the pretty little brunette interrupted his internal meltdown.  
Squaring his shoulders, Jensen stood up and followed her into the office and sat I the chair as that secretary instructed him to. He handed the woman behind the desk his résumé and began to study his feet.  
“Is this your idea of a sick joke?” a voice bit out with barely restrained anger making Jensen’s head snap up.  
Swallowing the bile in his throat, Jensen stood up so fast he almost knocked the chair over. The woman on the other side of the desk was Juliana Ford, Colin’s mother.


	3. Chapter 3

Jensen didn’t dare look at the classifieds for the next three days because it felt as though it was tainted somehow. That every interview he had from now on would be similar. Had he been able to sleep, he would probably have nightmares about the look of disgust on Juliana’s face.  
If he closed his eyes, he could still hear her screaming that he’d raped her son; that he’d destroyed her life, and she would do her best to see that he was locked up where he belonged.  
Another reason he didn’t try to look for work was the fact that he was waiting for the police to come and take him back to prison. He’d thought of the different scenarios of when and where the arrest would be.  
If he had somewhere to go, he would be there now because he didn’t want to see the joy on the other housemates faces as he was being handcuffed and led back to jail.  
A soft knock on the door pulled him from the scenes in his head that had him imprisoned again. Looking up, he saw Mike and Loretta at the door. He wasn’t surprised by Loretta’s visit, but Mike surprised him.  
“You can’t stay up here forever,” Loretta broke the silence.  
“I know,” Jensen mumbled. He kept the fact that he would stay as long as possible, though, to himself.  
“You keep getting dealt a shitty hand,” Mike told him, but that doesn’t mean that it’s always going to be the way. Don’t give those fuckers…”  
“Mike!” Loretta interrupted.  
“Okay, those bastards - and that’s as clean as it’s gonna get Loretta - the pleasure of seeing you break down. You lasted all of these years, inside with people doing their best to break you. Please don’t let these small minded people break you.”  
“This weekend, will be the first family visit, invite Jeff, and relax,” Loretta suggested. “Seeing someone outside these walls may make you feel better and see past now. He can help you plan your next step.”  
“Okay,” Jensen agreed and made to follow the pair downstairs.  
“Will I get to meet your Tom?” Jensen asked the older man.  
“Of course,” Mike smiled.

Jensen didn’t think calling Jeff to come for the family visit was a good idea, especially after the last conversation he’d had with the man. Jensen felt that his attorney had moved on and besides, he didn’t follow through on his earlier promise to bring him something for his ill-fated interview.  
He didn’t want to lie to her, but each time Loretta asked him if he had extended an invitation to the man, he just nodded. It was bad enough she had seen his brother reject him, to witness Jeff rejecting him as well would be more than he could bear.   
When visitors day finally rolled around, Jensen sat on the porch watching as each of the people in the house greeted their visitors.   
As he sat on the porch, Jensen watched in fascination as a tall, muscular man made his way up the walkway. He was singularly the most beautiful man that Jensen had ever seen in his life. At six foot, one Jensen was considered tall, but this man was taller - easily six foot three or four.   
The closer he got the most breathtaking the man was. The man looked up and began to smile revealing deep dimples. His face was open and friendly, and his thin lips looked soft and very kissable. The long shaggy brown hair hid the color of his eyes, and Jensen wanted to see them so badly.

 

Jared sat in his car and stared up at the house. It was in such a bad part of town the he checked the address on his GPS four times, and he was still uncertain that he was in the right place. He knew why that was, because why would a halfway house for criminals be placed in the middle of the grand old homes of the Historic District.   
No,,, it was in the right place. On the other side of the tracks where his older brother Jeff had bought him to find a prostitute when Jared had first told him he was gay. He’s still not sure which he was more terrified of, telling Jeff his secret or touching the girl.  
She had been nothing like he’d been envisioning, a crack or meth addict with scabby skin and rotten. No, this girl had been beautiful and could have been the high school prom queen. She’d had red hair and a friendly, easy going smile that had put him at ease. She’d been willing to walk away, no harm no foul when neither Jared nor his dick had been interested.  
Her pimp had been another story.  
Another pretty girl who’d barely stood over five feet, but she had been scary enough to scare both Jared, who towered over her and his brother who was a couple of inches taller.   
After they’d escaped with their lives and without their money, Jeff had told him that had he not believed him before. Anfter this experience, he was sure because if he hadn’t found the tiny terror hot as hell, then yeah, gay.  
The only other person he’d shared this information with had been Chad. Chad who had been there through thick and thin, and kept all of his secrets and watched out for him when Jared was too stupid to do so himself.  
He’s still not sure what Chad did to get himself arrested let alone sent to prison for three years because Chad wouldn’t share the specifics. His friend had glossed over the particulars, but the only thing Jared was sure of was that there was drugs and alcohol involved, and his friend was going to jail.  
He was free now, well almost. Today was a family day, and Chad had requested that Jared be the family that visited him and that humbled him. He wanted to see his friend to make sure that he was okay, but he can’t imagine how Chad will have changed.  
Chad was already a bit of an ass, and that had been part of his worry for his friend. Sometimes he didn’t know when to shut up, and that’s not a good trait when you’re locked up twenty four/seven with some huge dude named Bubba.   
He exacerbated his anxiety by watching prison documentaries and the entire season of OZ. Chad was pretty enough that he could become Beecher. He thought that he could just drive away and tell Chad that he got caught up on a job and came back when it wasn’t so busy, but he couldn’t do that.  
Jared stopped his stalling, took a deep breath, stepped out of his car and made his way down the walkway and faced his friend.

“Jay!” A familiar loud voice called his name as soon as he made his way down the walkway.  
Once he saw the blonde man run towards him, all of the doubts he’d been torturing himself with were erased.   
“Damn it’s good to see your ugly ass,” Jared greeted him.   
“You, too,” Chad returned the greeting, emotions choking his voice.  
After the initial hug, Jared stood back gave his friend a once over in an attempt to make sure that the other man was okay. He’s almost completed his inspection when he noticed him.  
The most beautiful man Jared had ever seen walked out of the door and all Jared could do was stare. He looked familiar, but in a town this size, Jared probably knew his family or something because there is no way he’d forget knowing someone who looked like that.   
The man gave Jared a sweet, timid little smile, and he wanted to beat his chest and declare to the world that this man was his.  
But this was a small town Texas, so Jared just smiled back.  
The feeling was short lived because Chad had to ruin the illusion.  
“Trust me, Jay, you do not want that. He has the most used hole in the Texas prison system. Look I know that it can’t be easy for you, but trust me when I tell you don’t want that guy, he... He’s the one that raped the Ford kid when we were in high school and how he managed to get parole is beyond me. If you want some ass let’s drive the next town over and find you, someone.”  
“Chad!” 

Jensen was nervous. The tall man had him fidgety and butterflies in his stomach nervous. Sure the man was here to visit his family but it wouldn’t hurt to be nice. He stood there working up the courage just to say hello, when his vision called out loudly, “Chad!”   
“Move it, princess,” Chad snapped as he walked out the door to greet his friend. “Jared, man it is so good to see you!”   
Watching as the two men embraced, Jensen tried to view the man through different eyes, because if he was friends with Murray, then his moral compass had to be skewed as well.   
“Don’t be a dick,” Jared reprimanded his friend with a smile, “I apologize for my friend, despite his lack of couth, I still consider him a friend.”  
“There’s no need to apologize to him, he was the prison bicycle and trust me, everyone took a ride.” Chad said while sneering at Jensen. “Speaking of rides, yours is sweet, a business must be good let’s go for a test drive see how she runs.”  
Jared looked between the new F150 King Ranch he’d purchased just a couple of months ago, back to the young man whom Chad had just insulted, and he was torn. He was here for Chad, but there was something about the stranger that made Jared want to take him in his arms and comfort him. 

 

Mortified didn’t begin to describe what Jensen was feeling at Chad’s words. People had described Jensen as shy before he went to prison. Had he not been incarcerated, it’s possible that he would have come out of his shell, but not enough to discuss his sex life with a stranger.  
The thought of that beautiful man knowing something so intimate about him on their first meeting had Jensen’s cheeks burning with shame making him want to escape.  
Ducking his head, Jensen turned to go back into the house and lock himself in his room until the handsome stranger was gone, but it just wasn’t his day. As he turned to go inside, he heard a familiar voice call his name.  
“Jensen!”  
Josh.  
What was he doing here? From the way that he’d attacked him in the parking lot he was sure that he’d seen the last of his brother, but here he was.  
“Remember, Jenny, no fucking in the house,” Chad chuckled as Jensen walked past him.  
Josh scowled before turning to walk down the path. There was a small unoccupied bench in the yard, and Josh made his way toward it not waiting to see if his brother followed him. Once Jensen reached the bench, he sat in space beside his brother and tried not to let the fact that Josh flinched when their legs accidently brushed together.   
They sat for a few minutes in silence before Jensen’s nerves got the better of him forcing him to speak.  
“Why are you here Josh? I thought that you wanted nothing to do with me.”  
“I don’t,” Josh answered, “but somehow you’ve convinced that lawyer of yours and the lady that runs this fine establishment that you’re as pure as snow. Even if I didn’t know that you’d raped a little boy, hearing your friend back there told me all I needed to know.”   
Choosing his words carefully, Jensen asked, “You talked to the only two people in this world that care about me when they called you did you even bother to ask why they are my friends? Do you even care?”  
“Not really, I mean it was bad enough that you were gay. Hell, mom and dad were even willing to forgive you for that, but I guess since you couldn’t find someone else in town to share your perversions you hurt that boy. So that you know, we haven’t moved. We’re in the same house, on the same street, you tried, but your depravity didn’t destroy us. It made us stronger. Mom and dad have two kids, and we learned to be happy again. That is until you somehow tricked the courts into letting you out.”  
“It was no trick, Josh,” Jensen told him as he tried not to let the other man’s words affect him. “It was innocence that set me free. DNA was finally tested and it proved that it was not mine.”  
“That’s a lie,” Josh yelled. “You hurt that kid. Stephen even knew that you did it because he rejected your depraved advances. I’m just here to tell you that whatever you and that slick attorney have cooked up, don’t include us because we want no part.”  
“Stephen lied about everything; Colin did too, but it seems as though you guys chose to believe them over me. I never lied - not once and that’s why I’m free right now. Go home Josh. You wanted to hurt me, you did. You can tell mom and dad that I won’t bother them. I wasn’t worth them fighting for me all those years ago; they’re not worth fighting for now.”

 

Later that evening when Jensen was immersed in the quiet of his room he thought about today’s events. After Josh’s visit he knew that he was alone, that his family was no longer his, they really hadn’t been since he’d first been accused, but holding on to the illusion helped him stay sane.  
It would be so fucking easy to end it all right here. He had a sixty-count bottle of a store brand pain reliever in his medicine cabinet that would do the trick. He looked towards the bathroom door and thought how easy it would be, not one would miss him, and his family would be relieved that he was out of their hair.  
If he went through with it, then Jeff would have fought for nothing, all of the time and energy he could have put into someone who was strong enough to survive the storm coming his way.  
Mike believed that he could do it, but then Mike had someone who believed in him.

His thoughts shifted to Mike and Tom. The thought that someone could love another person enough to wait was unbelievable to Jensen, but he had proof that such love existed.  
As though Mike knew where Jensen’s thoughts were heading he was soon knocking on Jensen’s door.  
Mike had wanted the two of them to meet, so he invaded Jensen’s space and made him come out to meet his Tom. He was tall, blue eyed and so in love with Mike that anyone who looked at them could see it. Jensen had doubted that love, but not anymore.   
Mike had told him more than once that he was worthy of being loved and that he needed to stand up for himself and Tom agreed. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could do it.  
He had no reason to be terrified of these guys anymore, but he was. He was taller and just as strong or stronger in some cases and then there was the fact that he was the innocent one. He had to grow a pair and start behaving that way - needed to believe it and get the sound of being told that he was disgusting and good only for fucking out of his head.   
The problem was it was easier said than done. 

Since the disastrous interview, Jensen had shied away from them but he knew that he had to start looking again. Loretta found him a bus schedule so that he could plan his job hunt with that in mind. He was searching the papers when Henry Smith entered the house.  
“Jensen, good to see you, how’s it going?” the man asked, and Jensen could tell that he was genuinely concerned.  
“I’m okay.”   
“Catching up on the news?” he nodded towards the paper Jensen was reading.  
Smiling, Jensen shook his head, “No, trying to find work.”  
“I know it’s probably hard, but you’ll find something. Look I have another reason to come here today other than seeing Loretta. My members are asking about you, so I wanted to know if you’d join us tomorrow for our Wednesday Bible study.”  
“I - I’m not sure. I have no way to get there.”  
“That’s not a problem, if you can be ready at five thirty, we can send transportation for you,” Henry told him. “Some of the others come as well. Not only is there a bible study, but there are AA classes and support groups for people just being released from prison. If that’s not enough to get you to join us also, there is free pizza, coffee, and doughnuts.  
“Okay,” he reluctantly agreed. “Not so much for the bible study, but the support group would be wonderful.”  
The ride was a church van. According to the lettering on the side, it was a church van from the United Unitarian Church, and it was sitting in front of the house at five thirty exactly on Wednesday evening.  
Color him surprised. The other surprise was that Henry was not driving it. Since the moment that older man gave him the money collected from the church, Jensen has had doubts about his intentions and was waiting for conditions for the money.  
Each time he expected the man to collect, he did something shitty like keeping his word. How the fuck is Jensen supposed to keep his guard up if the man is trustworthy?  
As he fought to keep Henry Smith an enemy or at least at arm’s length, Jensen received another chink in his armor when Ty and David joined him in the van.  
Judging the way they greeted the driver, they have been to these meetings before, so Jensen voiced his doubts to the pair.  
“They’re good, non-judgmental people, Jensen,” Ty told him. “Don’t try to deny it, it’s written all over your face that you don’t trust them and wondering what their angle is. There isn’t one.”  
“Yeah,” David agreed. “These folks have been nothing but helpful and are even responsible for Ty and I getting jobs. They even helped us find a place to live.”  
“I know it’s hard to see the good in them or anyone right now when you’ve still got the stink of prison on you, but you’ll learn,” Ty said.  
“I suppose this is the part where you tell me that I will forget what happened to me and soon it’ll all be a distant memory?” Jensen said sarcastically.  
“Hell, I might as well tell you to believe in unicorns,” Ty snorted. “You’ll never forget what happened to in that hell-hole and you should never be so comfortable that you do. You had no control over what happened to you and its worse in your case because unlike the rest of us you were innocent, but you can control how you let it shape you.”  
“You sound like some low rent Dr. Phil,” Jensen scoffed.  
“Perhaps his words aren’t as pretty, but he’s telling the truth,” David seconded.  
“Let us help you, son,” the bus driver joined in. “We can get you through this with both God and science. Don’t break now.”   
Having lived in this town his entire life, Jensen thought that he knew every inch of it. However, when the van made two more stops at residences similar to his, he realized how sheltered he’d been. Even had he met some of these people before his incarceration, he’d have judged them as criminals and not to be trusted. Their last stop had housed women and the pair who joined them in the van; his mother would have deemed unfit to talk to let alone befriend.

Mother. All women he met were judged by her; she was the ultimate home maker, supportive wife, and doting, mom. She was also soft spoken and nothing like the cursing, tattooed women who took the seat in front of him.  
“Hey, sugar,” the pretty redhead turned to greet him while the short brunette eyed him warily. “You’re new.”  
“Leave him alone, Danneel,” the smaller girl advised, “I don’t think you have the right equipment for him.”  
“Don’t worry, honey,” she soothed him when she saw the panic in his eyes, “you’re safe with us, no one here cares. My only problem is that I just wanted to take you for a ride, but I guess that’s another dream that won’t come true. ”  
“She’s right, Jensen, it’s okay; and just so you know she only bites when you ask,” David laughed.  
“Rawr,” Danneel teased as she made claws with her hands.  
Henry was there to welcome the van when they arrived at the church and greeted each rider by name. That wasn’t that remarkable to Jensen but the fact that this van of parolees trusted the man told him more than anything either they or Henry said.  
“You guys are right on time,” Henry told them. “Jensen can you come with me please, there are some people who want to meet you.”  
Watching as the others walked down the hall to another room Jensen assured himself that everything was going to be okay as he followed Henry to a room across the hall. Once inside he was introduced to the pastor, Christopher Heyerdahl, and church members all giving their sympathies and encouragement.  
Jensen was only half listening but until the door opened to admit a late comer. Once the newcomer stepped into the room, the roaring in his ears completely drowned out what little he was hearing.  
It was Chad’s friend from the family day. The hot guy who was there when Josh was telling Jensen that he wasn’t wanted. The one Jensen couldn’t get out of his head.  
“Ahh, Jared. Nice of you to join us,” Henry teased as he tapped his watch.   
“Sorry I’m late,” Jared blushed. “I was giving a quote for a deck and the time slipped away from me.”  
He was even more beautiful close up. Jensen ducked his head as he noted the things that he didn’t have a chance to before. For instance, Jared had a mole just to the left of his mouth, and his hair, a deep chocolate brown with highlights that Jensen was sure came from the sun and not a salon. His hair looked so soft that his fingers itched to touch it.  
The dimples were still there but this time Jensen could see those eyes, and they were so beautiful. He couldn’t decide on a color because they kept changing; sometimes blue, sometimes green but always mesmerizing.  
“…right Jensen?” Henry asked him and he had no idea what had been said to him.  
“I’m sorry,” Jensen asked as he closed his eyes in embarrassment, “I didn’t catch that.”  
“Well everyone in this little circle is a business owner,” Henry explained “and you’re looking for a job, right?”   
For a moment, Jensen got his hopes up that these people would help him, but those hopes were soon squashed as each person admitted that they had no immediate openings.  
“What about you, Jared?” Henry asked, “last week you were telling me that your business was picking up enough that you were looking to hire someone.”  
“I was, but my friend Chad will be filling that position starting next week.”  
Jensen wasn’t sure if he was happy or upset at the announcement. The position would earn him the money that would allow him to leave the house, but then he would be nearby of Jared every day, and he wasn’t sure if he could handle that.  
“Well, this wasn’t going to be announced until next week, but Miss Emma is going to retire, and we’ll need someone to take over her position,” Heyerdahl told the group. “Let us put our money where our mouth is and give the young man a chance. I’ll have to interview you for the position, Jensen but if you meet the qualifications, I don’t see why you can’t fill the position.”  
“That’ll be great,” Jensen smiled at the cleric. As he shook, the man’s hand Jensen swore he heard Jared let out a sigh of relief.   
He’s sure that some of the others did as well, but his attention was on Jared. He wanted this job because it was a chance to get out of the halfway house and began to have a normal life, or as close to normal that he could manage.  
An interview was set up for Jensen, and the group dispersed and Jensen wandered off to find the group from the van.  
He talked to them and joined a group meeting that was designed to help them adjust to life on the outside. Jensen was too shy to contribute, but he learned more about the others. For instance, pretty Danneel had served time for assaulting a John while working as a prostitute. Genevieve had helped because, as her pimp, she needed to protect her girl.  
Jensen hadn’t expected to get anything from this group, but the group leader was a psychologist from a couple of towns over called Riverdale and contributed to the group twice a month. She gave them some good advice and gave root to a plan for the future.   
He hadn’t planned to come back, and the only reason he came tonight was because he had been reared by two God fearing Southern Baptists who had ingrained in him to do the right thing.  
Once the groups was finished, the people mingled together, and Jensen smiled as he witnessed the uneasiness from the Bible study group, but like him, they would always be polite. And besides, they would complain later to the board.  
The rest of the night Jensen spent sipping on a coke and trying to catch glimpses of the tall man while at the same time staying away from him. The man confused him. As he walked around the room conversing with all of the ex-cons, he seemed at ease and a genuinely nice person, but then he was friends with Chad, so how nice could he be?  
As he watched the man, he also noticed that he did not come anywhere near, Jensen. After the foul shit Chad was spouting aloud, he didn’t want to think about what he told the man privately. It didn’t matter anyway. Guys like Jared were straight and even if he were gay, he wouldn’t want someone as used as Jensen.

Everyone was more relaxed on the ride back. They were talkative, and the girls were giggly, but Jensen wasn’t paying attention until he heard them mention Jared’s name. He failed miserably at trying to eavesdrop on the conversation.  
“Jared’s gay you know,” Genevieve told him quietly so that no one else would hear.   
Jensen wanted to ignore her, to pretend that the quiet words didn’t make something inside him soar, but he couldn’t. “How do you know?”  
“My gaydar is good, had to be on the streets to protect my people. By now yours should be.”  
“Never had a chance to develop it because I never had the chance to date,” he explained to her. “Besides he’d never be interested in me, and I’m not sure I could handle being with someone right now anyway.”  
“Shit Jensen, it doesn’t have to be forever, just sex,” Genevieve explained. “Everybody needs to get their rocks off before they settle. I’m just saying that if you wanted to make a booty call, he’s a good choice.”  
This time he did ignore her because he’d had enough booty calls forced on him in prison that he wasn’t looking for one now. No matter how hard he tried to push the feelings aside, thinking about Jared gave him warm fuzzys that,,, he hadn’t felt since anticipating his first date with Stephen all those years ago.  
Jared constantly weighed on his mind and even when he stared out of his window that night the tall man was prominemt in his thoughts. Later when he slipped into a light sleep before dawn, the gorgeous man featured heavily in his dreams. Wet dreams. The dreams were his first voluntary sexual response since he went to prison, and that scared the shit out of him.  
The next morning he waited outside of Loretta’s office with a cup of coffee and a smile.  
“Boy, what’s gotten into you?” She asked as she took the hot liquid from him.   
He smiled and took a sip from his cup to calm his nerves. There was no way he was going to tell her about his attraction to Jared, but then the good-looking man was not the only reason he was in a good mood this morning.  
Taking the seat across from her, Jensen explained about the potential job offer from the church, and how he needed help practicing for his interview. He was sure that he had the job, but it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared.   
It also gave him a chance to make sure that the C.V. was in order. Loretta had helped him prepare the other one, but Jensen didn’t want to leave anything to chance.   
“Jensen, honey, this is wonderful,” Loretta gushed as she pulled out the diplomas he’d earned online from very reputable schools. Not only did he have a master's degree in business, but he had earned an accounting degree as well.   
“I’m glad that you spent your time preparing for your release.”  
He blushed at her praise, but he didn’t earn those degrees because he wanted to better himself, he earned them because they were the one thing that Kripke couldn’t take from him. The few hours he spent online and studied with a tutor were painfree, so he took advantage.  
“I’m not sure if Henry will come through, but I want to be ready in case he does.”  
“Jensen, I know that you feel that everyone around you has failed you, but this church has come through time and time again for our people, don’t think that everyone is out to hurt you.”  
“That’s a tall order Loretta when I’m proven right each time. I mean take Jeff for instance,” Jensen used in example. He still hadn’t seen or heard from the man since the awkward conversation before his disastrous job interview.  
There was indecision on the woman’s face telling Jensen she wanted to argue, but had no ammunition left.  
Once the pair completed Jensen’s mock interview they headed to the kitchen to cook breakfast for everyone. Loretta named a few places that he could apply that wouldn’t have to disclose his incarceration. She explained that because his conviction was overturned he had no need to put it on his applications, but he would need to explain why he never had a job.   
He talked about the evening, and how Henry was trying his best to get employment for Jensen. “He even tried to get me work with Chad’s friend, the tall one who came on family day, but Chad had already filled the position.”  
“Of course he gave the job to me. I’m his friend and besides, why would he want a slut like you working for him?” Chad sneered from the doorway. “He would have to turn down work because he couldn’t let a child molester on his job sites.”  
“Enough, Chad,” Loretta warned.  
“Why do you always stick up for him, I mean he’s as low as they come, yet you treat him like he’s the fucking second coming?”  
“No Chad, she treats me like a human being, something you know nothing about. If Jared is your friend, then you don’t have to worry about me wanting to be near him, job or not. You don’t like me - I get it, trust me I do. Let’s just keep it simple, you don’t talk to me and I won’t talk to you and we’ll get along just fine until we’re both out of here.”  
Holding his breath, Jensen waited for Chad to respond. The glare in his eyes told Jensen that the blonde wanted to respond but he couldn’t respond as he wanted to with Loretta standing there.  
Two pairs of eyes watched as Chad walked over to the stove and snagged a piece of bacon.   
“This is good Loretta,” he told her as he munched on the strip of meat and began to fix a plate of food ignoring Jensen’s outburst.  
Loretta went to wake the others for breakfast, leaving Chad and Jensen alone. Jensen waited on tether hooks for the man to say something but true to his word he said nothing; Chad just sat there and stuffed his face.  
Just as Jensen was beginning to relax, the back door opened and in walked Jared Padalecki.  
Its times like this that Jensen hates his fair skin. One glance at the overly tall man had him blushing so badly that he could feel it from the roots of his hair to the soles of his feet.  
“Slut!” Chad accused causing Jensen’s blush to deepen, but this time it was from embarrassment and shame. “C’mon Jared lets go before the bicycle decides to give you a ride on the kitchen table.”  
Jensen couldn’t decipher the look on Jared face because as soon as Chad’s words left his mouth, Jensen looked at his feet not wanting to see the disgust on the other man’s face.  
Only looking up when he heard the door slam behind the men, Jensen found that he had lost his appetite and dumped the remainders of his breakfast into the trash. 

Henry Smith was quickly disabusing Jensen’s belief that there was no one who cared about him. The man had come through with the interview and the board approved the hiring once they were made aware of Jensen’s education and a week later Jensen had started his new job training under Miss Emma Stonestreet.  
Two weeks after he started the octogenarian retired and Jared Padalecki disrupted his new life before he could settle into it.


	4. Chapter 4

Miss Emma had signed the contracts and made the arrangements with Padalecki Contracting, therefore Jensen had to honor them but he really didn’t want to. It was bad enough that he couldn’t hide the fact that he was attracted to the man, but now he had to work with him and see Chad at a place where there was no Loretta to moderate.  
The church was growing as was its community outreach programs. They had programs for ex-cons, parenting classes as well as an AA chapter and they needed more space, Padalecki Contracting had been contracted to build a building that could hold all of the meetings as well as grow with the community. As the church administrator, Jensen was the point of contact for the church.  
Jared and his crew were scheduled to start construction two weeks after Jensen began, so that gave him time to both learn what his job needed and once Miss Emma left, update the office to make it more efficient before having to deal with one Jared Padalecki.  
The day the heavy equipment rolled onto the property, Jensen was having a bad day. He was arguing with the printers because they were going up on the price of the weekly programs. The owner insisted that the only reason that he kept the price so low was because of Miss Emma who had been his Sunday school teacher and Jensen hadn’t done anything to warrant the same discount.  
With the difference that the printer was going to charge them, Jensen paid a visit to the Geek Crew, purchased a new computer as well as some medium quality paper and printed the programs himself. He knew it was a good move but in his anger he had made the decision without clearing it with Henry or the pastor first so now he was terrified that he was going to be fired.  
And then Jared walked in his tiny office.  
Sitting down looking up at the large man made Jensen even more nervous. He wasn’t sure what it was about the man that made him so jittery, perhaps it was the fact that Jared made it clear that he didn’t like Jensen.  
“I’m here to see Miss Emma,” Jared told him without preamble.  
“Um, Miss Emma retired. I’m taking her place.”  
“Did Henry lose his mind?” Jared looked at him with disbelief. “I know that Henry wants to save the world, but I thinks that he should start by saving those who haven’t been hurt yet. I thought that he was just going through the motions, why would he hire a convicted pedophile to work around children?”  
There it was; that word again.  
Pedophile.   
It rendered him speechless, helpless. For a moment. He was proven innocent and he could stand in the middle of the church and his job and defend himself, but he wouldn’t. He didn’t want to bring that kind of attention to himself while he was new on this job. After the fiasco of his interview with Juliana Ford he didn’t want to have to deal with that again. No he would let Henry deal with Jared.  
Besides the children Jared wanted to protect do badly were behind a closed door not two feet away and he didn’t want to scare them.  
Biting back the desire to defend himself, Jensen directed Jared to Henry’s office at the end of the hall while he retreated and sought refuge in his small office and completed his work all the while listening as Jared went outside with his crew.  
He could hear Jared and Henry arguing about him and knew that Jared was questioning whether the older man let his Christianity overcome his common sense. Jared became more vocal in his defense of the children, while Henry could barely be heard.  
Suddenly the shouting stopped and Jared could be heard slamming the door to Henry’s office. There was no mad rush to Jensen’s office to fire him nor flaming accusations from the daycare workers. It seemed although luck was on Jensen’s side because the kids had been taken to the gym to play.  
Jared left, but not to start the job that he’d been contracted to do. No it seemed that the affable contractor was very civil minded and called the police department.  
A slight headache that began after the confrontation with Jared was now a full blown migraine and all Jensen wanted was to slip unnoticed to his room and sleep it off.   
That was not to be however. It seemed that while he worked for men who represented a merciful God, God didn’t often show him mercy because when he walked through that front door, the officers who originally investigated his case and later arrested him, Roché and Sheppard were waiting for him.  
The men sitting on the sofa had not noticed his arrival so Jensen closed the door quietly before turning to make his way to his room. He almost made it but like everything else in his life this turned out wrong as well. Catching his foot on the small rug that Loretta kept at the door, Jensen almost pulled a picture from the wall as he tried to stop himself from falling.  
Sitting on his ass with a picture of Jesus being followed by lambs clutched in his hands, Jensen found himself in the awkward position of looking up at the two police officers.  
Sheppard, the nicer (for lack of a better description) of the pair reached down to help him up, but there was no way he was going to accept the hand from one of the bastards who had ruined his life. The sneer on the Brits face told Jensen that he had pissed the man off, but that was just one of many things about Jensen that the man didn’t like.  
“Trying to slip past us were you?” Sheppard asked   
If his past interactions with the pair taught him anything, it was that no matter what he said, they were not going to believe him or they twisted his words around and used them against him so he remained silent.  
“C’mon let’s have a talk,” Sheppard nodded his head towards the sofa that he’d been sitting on just a few minutes before.   
When Jensen made no move to get up, Roché who was still standing in front of the sofa, dropped all pretenses being civil. “We can talk here or we can go downtown, and trust me you don’t want to go downtown.”  
No he didn’t. But then they had no reason to take him did they?   
He knew that he should call Jeff, that this was going to end in nothing but disaster, he said, “I need to call my attorney,”  
“We’re just talking Jensen,” Sheppard smiled at him, “there’s no need for your attorney unless you have something to hide.”  
“Or confess,” Roché threw in.  
Not wanting to piss off two officers with guns and a house full of men who would sell their soul not to go back to prison, Jensen met them halfway. He stood up, but he did not join them on the seat they were sharing, he leaned on the doorframe and looked at them for all the world of mutinous child.  
In an attempt not to stare at the men as they gave their reasons for being there, Jensen looked around the room and noticed that they had an audience. Ty and David were in the kitchen and Chad and Paul were sitting at the table in the breakfast nook with happiness on their faces at the predicament that Jensen now found himself in.  
He could handle them, they had been the cause of or the witness of much of his humiliation for the past six years, but it was the tall man shooting him daggers from his seat next to Chad who threw him off.  
Why was Jared here?  
Chad worked for the big man and was probably dependent on him for a ride, because Chad, I’m-the-coolest-motherfucker-on-the-planet wouldn’t be caught dead riding the bus.  
With a quick glance towards Jared, in a no nonsense voice, Roché, said, “It has been bought to our attention that you are working somewhere that you shouldn’t. Just because you’re in a church, that doesn’t give you a free pass to works around the kiddies.”  
“And we know how much you like the little buggars,” Sheppard chimed in.  
Jensen’s knees went a little weak at the implication of what Sheppard was telling him. It wasn’t a coincidence that Jared was there because he was the one responsible for him being harassed by these two.  
The blush on Jared’s cheeks told him that he was right; Jared had called them.  
How could this be happening? No one in this room was going to help him because they had too much to lose. David was so disinterested that he was texting someone and Loretta was gone.   
“Since you want to be where you shouldn’t we thought it best to pay you a visit and remind you of what the parameters of parole for a child fucker is,” Roché spat at him.  
“But…” Jensen started weakly.  
“That’s what got you into trouble in the first place,” Chad laughed as he elbowed Paul in the side.  
“Chad!” was Jared’s only response.  
“See you’re supposed to register on the sex offender’s registry to let everyone with children know that it is not safe to have you around, and the fact that you didn’t is more than enough to take you back to jail.”  
“That’s a major violation of your parole, so turn around and place your hands behind your back,” Sheppard commanded, all of the false playfulness gone from his voice.  
This cannot be happening; not again Jensen thought to himself as he shook his head in disbelief. Jeff had promised him that things were fine, that he wasn’t on parole so he didn’t have to place himself on any sex offenders list.  
“But I’m not on parole!” Jensen informed the men as he backed up, “I‘m not on parole so I don’t have to register.”  
“Aww, look at little Jenny. Going back home to Sterling,” Paul taunted.  
The thought of that broke Jensen. He knew that he shouldn’t have let himself get comfortable, that he should have remembered his place.  
“Please,” he begged as Sheppard walked towards him removing his handcuff from his belt. “You can’t do this. I’m free, not on probation.”  
At this point no one was paying attention to Jensen, Paul and Chad decided to speed things up and subdue Jensen for the cops as they stood back and watch. Later when Jensen thought about it, if Jensen was hurt the blame wouldn’t be placed on them.  
Once they reached Jensen, Mike walked into the door.  
“What the fuck is going in here?” he asked before jumping into the fray and pulling both men away from Jensen.  
“None of your business, mate.” Roché told Mike.   
“Yeah, but it is mine,” Jeff Morgan said from the door. “Step away from him, and the two of you have no right to talk to him let alone arrest him.”  
“Perhaps they could have handled this a little better,” Jared conceded, “but that still doesn’t negate the fact the he is working around children. He’s dangerous and should have never been freed, so let them do their job and take his ass back to jail where he belongs.”  
“Jensen?” Jeff asked not taking his eyes from anyone in the room, “You okay buddy? Did anyone hurt you?”  
“I’m fine Jeff,” Jensen reassured him as he rubbed his lip where someone had hit him.  
“Good.” He said before he looked over at Jared. “You’re Dr. Padalecki’s kid right? You built a deck for me a couple of years back, and you did a great job of it. You know why, because that’s what you do, you build decks and not practice law. Instead of getting all of the fucking facts, you could have gotten an innocent man killed.”  
“No,” Jared responded as he clinched his jaw, “he’s on parole and working around kids, I did the right thing.”  
“No, the right thing would have been to have all of the facts first. Facts like he was released because all of his charges have been dropped because D-fucking-NA that proved that Jensen couldn’t have possibly hurt that kid. It also proved that these two fuck ups knew it and planted evidence to get Jensen convicted. Of course it didn’t take much in a closed minded little place like this, now would it.”  
There were audible gasps from all of the men in the room and for a moment Paul and Chad loosened their grips on Jensen. After the involuntary gasps, the room went into a deafening silence that made Jensen a little more nervous than before.   
Jared was the first to break the silence, and Jensen felt a grim satisfaction at the guilt and in his voice when he spoke.  
“Wha…? Innocent? But he can’t be. Innocent. They were going to arrest him, take him back to jail. Oh God I’m sorry,” Jared exclaimed as he ran his hand down his face before turning away from Jensen and slamming his fist against the wall.  
“Imagine what good those words would have been tomorrow if we had to search for Jensen’s body somewhere, because there was no way he was going to make it back to the station.”  
“You can’t come in here making accusations like that,” Sheppard blustered.  
“Well, I can,” Jeff stated smugly, “but the officers outside checking your car have even more right.”  
Jeff laughed as the two men ran outside to see what was going on.  
“What if the police decide to help them?” Jensen asked, still scared that they were going to come back in and arrest him. “I mean I’ve read about the Blue Wall of Silence. They believe the lies based on my sexuality alone and covered up for them before. What’s to stop them this time?”  
“Don’t worry about that, I have five interns filming the entire process,” Jeff assured him. “They were there waiting when the police pulled up so there is no worry that they started before my guys got here.”  
“You know that all sounds good, but can they be trusted? I mean they called you, maybe someone doesn’t like them and planted something in their car.” Chad tried.   
“They didn’t call me, Loretta did,” Jeff told the young man. “By the way, who is David?”  
David’s hand went up in jerky motions as though he was afraid of the repercussions of admitting that he’d been the one to help.  
“Good job man,” Ty praised his friend with a pat on the back.  
“Yeah, thanks for the quick thinking man, you’re the only one who thought to text her, luckily I wasn’t that far away and she’s the next county over so it will be awhile before she gets here.”  
Now it was Jensen’s turn to feel guilty. He’d thought the older man was too caught up in texting a friend that he couldn’t be bothered with the fact that Jensen’s was almost carted off. Shaking off the hands that still held onto him, Jensen slowly got to his feet to shuffle over to find a seat on the sofa that he’d refused to sit on earlier.  
Once he was seated Paul, Jared and Chad slunk to a corner but the others spurred into care mode. Mike hadn’t said a thing since he burst into the room, but he was there with water and Aleve, while Ty was close behind with a cold cut sandwich that Jensen’s not sure how he managed to put together so fast.  
He wasn’t hungry, but like Ty he needed something to do so he ate the food hoping that it wouldn’t reappear later.  
David was still texting and relaying messages from a very unhappy Loretta. Had the blonde not been so willing to sell him out, Jensen might have felt a little sorry for Chad.  
After reading one of the many text starting to come through, Jeff sighed and sat down beside Jensen. “Hey guys, can you guys give us a few minutes?”  
Jared and his group bolted at Jeff’s request as though they had been waiting for a reason to leave. The others headed towards their rooms casting glances at Jensen and his attorney.  
“Okay, Jensen,” Jeff sighed once they were alone. “I need to tell you what is happening. My guys have told me that Sheppard and Roché are being placed under arrest based on evidence found in their trunk. When that kid called them earlier, my guess is they didn’t bother to check your status, they just assumed that because you were living here that you were on probation. They put together a murder kit, drove over here and were most likely gonna dump your body somewhere. They weren’t even going to try to stage anything, they were just going to kill you.”  
“If they’re being arrested then why is that a problem for me? They are the ones caught red handed right?”  
“Jensen you were innocent and look what happened to you. These guys have more riding on this, a lot more than a stellar closed case record and their pension. Can you imagine what happens to cops in jail? They are going to come at you with everything they’ve got and they have friends and people who owe them favors and trust me they are going to collect. We need to come up with a game plan.”  
Shrugging his shoulders, the words were out before Jensen could stop them, “I didn’t think you cared. Not anymore. When I asked you for help, you never came.”  
“I couldn’t come Jensen, so I sent your brother in my stead. I gave some money to Loretta for you for clothes, but I have other clients that I’m fighting for just as hard as I fought for you Jensen.”  
Turning a small smile on Jeff, Jensen confessed; “You’ve been so kind and helped me so much that I forget that you weren’t there from the beginning. I forget that you weren’t there to witness the hateful things that my brother called me the day they led me away. He repeated them the day he came to visit, so thanks for that.”  
He didn’t tell the lawyer that he’d received no money from Loretta. There had to be a reason that she had not passed the money onto him. After all that has happened tonight, he’d deal with that later.  
“Man I’m sorry. Look, I didn’t know.” He told him as he became lost in thought. “What I have planned, well it’s going to involve your family and it might not work without their backing. I’ll talk to them before I move forward.”   
“Can you give me some idea of what you’re doing?”  
“I’m - let’s just say that one of the things I’m working on is suing the state of Texas,” before Jensen could interrupt, Jeff continued, “I know you didn’t want that but in light of what just happened, they owe you.”  
“I couldn’t agree more.”  
“I’m going to check on things outside,” Jeff informed his client, “so you try to rest okay?”  
Jensen nodded his head in agreement.  
To say that Loretta was furious was an understatement, and she wasn’t just mad at Jared; Chad, Paul and Mike were included in her wrath.   
“But we were trying to help,” Chad complained when she threatened to hit them all with 50 points apiece.   
“You know what, your dumb ass deserves more because had you not been so willing to help, they would have had to do their own dirty work, so please be quiet before I start to pile the points on.”   
If her words didn’t register the severity of the situation, when Loretta crossed her arms and glared at the group, it bespoke louder than her high pitched voice had. No one spoke out of fear that they would earn more points.  
“This is not jail, if you do what you’re supposed to, those stupid fucks can’t touch you. Whatever vendetta you had when you were locked up, you should have left it there because that’s what get people sent back. Let it go boys. Or you will never succeed out here.  
No one wanted to be the fuck up who helped send himself back to prison because they couldn’t keep their mouth shut, so with the exception of Jensen they all but ran from the room.   
“Jensen, honey, are you okay?” Loretta inquired when Chad closed the door behind him.  
This was the part that confused him, her concern. Part of him screamed that it was genuine and another part questioned her motives. He looked at her and thought about when he told her that he had contacted Jeff, but he never told her about the conversation he had with the man. That he had left Jensen money. He had waited, but not once did she mention that Jeff had left him money.  
As she stood there waiting he knew that he had to make a decision and it had to be the right one, whatever he decided would choose the course of their relationship. He was still deciding when she smiled at him and then he knew. He wasn’t sure why she didn’t give him the money, but whatever the reason there was no malice behind it.  
“I’m fine Loretta,” he assured her, “it’s just that today’s events have kind of knocked me sideways. Listen, Jeff mentioned that he’d left something for me on family day…”  
“Oh, honey that’s right he did,” she remembered as she moved to open her antiquated file cabinet and retrieved a sealed envelope, “but with all of the commotion that comes with that day and strange people in and out, I placed it in my special file and completely forgot about it.”  
A quick glance told Jensen that the envelope bore his name written in Jeff’s hurried chicken scratch and it had never been opened.  
He had to get out of there. From the time she’d rescued him from Kripke’s clutches Loretta had been nothing but a friend to him and he’d dared doubt her. She had rushed back to the house after making sure that Jeff came to take care of this business with the police. Feeling guilty that he had questioned her, Jensen gave her a weak smile before opening the door to make his escape and barreled right into Sterling Brown.


	5. Chapter 5

  
Even though he hadn’t realized, since his release a few weeks ago Jensen had begun to relax. He was sleeping a full two hours a night and Brown hadn’t been in the house for more than two hours and Jensen was back to listening for the footfalls outside his door.  
Not only did he change Jensen’s mood, but the new arrival affected everyone in the house.  
“Why does he make you guys so scared?” Mike asked one day over breakfast.  
“Scared? It ain’t fear,” Ty explained. “Well maybe, but not the physical kind. You guys just arrived and like the rest of us you’ll get your points fast and furious before you figure things out. The problem is that you only get it when you’re down to your last fifty or so points before you realize that you’re sending yourself back to the joint. Men like Brown will push buttons and watch you react before you know what hit and then you’re locked back up not sure when you’ll see freedom again.”  
“Yeah,” David agreed, “We both have less than a week to get out of this place and so we’re giving him a wide berth until then.”  
Jensen listened to the conversation and understood what Ty and David meant. He didn’t get points but there was the possibility that he could be asked to leave because of a reaction to his former cellmate and torturer. At this point Brown hadn’t caused any trouble yet, but he prowled around the house like an alpha feeling out the land and marking his territory.  
He would walk into a room and attempt to draw Jensen and the others into conversation as though he was just a new roommate trying to get to know everyone. Somehow this Sterling scared him more than the one who’d beat and raped him. He was scarier because Jensen knew that he was going to attack, he just couldn’t read the signs to tell him when so he did his best to avoid the man.

 

Three days. It had been three days since Jensen stepped back into his nightmare that heavily featured Sterling Brown. Add to that the stress of avoiding him at the house along with doing the same with Chad and Jared while he was working and it all made him exhausted.  
He gets his first ever paycheck today, and wanted to spend the weekend doing something fun, maybe treating Loretta, Mike, Ty and David to a meal. But now he’s not sure if he will come out of his room. There’s no way he can sit and look into the smug eyes of the man who broke him all of the ways that a human could be broken.  
Pastor Heyerdahl had delivered his first paycheck during lunch and seized the opportunity to see how Jensen was settling in. It was a nice respite to keep his mind from thinking about the new housemate as well as keeping him from walking over to the window where Jared and his crew were working.  
It seemed that he was a glutton for punishment, because he couldn’t seem to keep his mind off the man. There were times it seemed that Jared felt Jensen’s stare because a couple of times their eyes met and Jensen fled the window in shame.  
Putting off leaving as long as he could, Jensen checked all of the rooms that were being used for the day. The church ran a daycare and Jensen as well as holding several meetings that collected dues and now he had taken as much time as possible to settle the week’s accounts, and if he waited much longer he would miss the bus and become stranded.  
As he exited the building, Jensen was assaulted by wolf whistles coming from the work area and because of the tension, and the fact that no small town southern boy would dare whistle at a gay, he turned to see who was causing the commotion.  
Genevieve and Danneel.  
The cheekiness of their responses to the construction workers as well as their presence made him smile for the first time in days.  
“To what do I owe this pleasure, ladies?” He asked as he walked towards them.  
“Well…” Danneel drew out coquettishly, “we are now free ladies no more checking in with a P.O. And a little birdie told me that you don’t have to either, so we’re going to celebrate. Six months in jail and six months on parole, and now we’re free and we want to celebrate. The problem is that all of our money went to first and last month’s, and we can’t get funds the easy way for a proper night out, we thought that we’d see if you like to buy our first drink and listen to some good music.”  
“Oh, so you want me to fund the night’s activities,” Jensen guessed.  
“Just the first drink cowboy,” Genevieve corrected him. “We can manage the rest on our own.”  
He was going to argue, but then he saw Jared out of the corner of his eye and shrugged his shoulders and agreed. It was better than sitting at the house looking at reruns of Friends or sitting in his room waiting to be attacked.  
Jensen walked back into the church to call Loretta because he didn’t want her to worry and he wasn’t supposed to be out past ten, but the woman made an exception for him. As he ended the call he checked everything again to make sure that everything was put away and locked up, he spotted a cellular bill that that had come today, and decided that he needed to get one. He didn’t have anyone to call, but that wouldn’t always be true.   
“I didn’t think that you were going to come back out,” Jared greeted when he walked out of the office. “Look, man I know that it’s none of my business, but you do know that they’re pros - hookers right?”  
“You’re right, it’s none of your business, but for the record, I don’t have to worry about them calling the police on me.”  
Jared least had the decency to be embarrassed.  
“That’s why I came in. I know I was out of line, I want to apologize for what happened, but I didn’t know that you’d been exonerated and I thought that I was doing the right thing. Hell, even Chad is still shocked about that.”  
Jensen tried to find the words to express that he would forgive him but the guy had placed him in a scary situation. As he attempted to fight off the hangdog look of the man before him, Jared attacked him.  
“Look if you’re not going to accept my apology just say so. You don’t have to leave me hanging here because you’re in a hurry to run off with your whores. Chad was right you are a dick.”   
Chad, of course it was Chad. He was Jared’s friend and not matter what, Jared would take his word and not bother to find out if his friend was telling the truth or not.  
“The more time I spend around you the more I understand why you and Chad are friends, but you know what? No matter what you think about me, you have no reason to put these girls down like that,” Jensen defended his new friends. “Sure they aren’t the homecoming queens, but unlike your friend, who has been known to attack first and ask questions later, their only crime was fucking someone for money so you really need to check the company you keep before you start judging my friends.”  
Not giving the other man a chance to respond, Jensen shook his head and walked away wondering how this was turned around on him. He was the one who’d been wronged, yet Jared was trying to make him the bad guy and he wasn’t going to let that happen. Loretta was okay with his night out and he was going to get drunk, well at least buzzed, and enjoy time with people who didn’t seem to want to cause him harm.  
Fuck Jared.

The bar was different than Jensen had pictured, but then he was basing it on the bars on the other side of town where polite society partied. On this side of the tracks, the best you could hope for was to make it from the place without bleeding profusely.  
Once inside Gen and Danni found a table while Jensen made his way to the bar to buy the first round of drinks. As he placed the cold beers in front of the girls, he was sure that this was the only round he’d be buying them tonight because by the time he made it to the table, Danni was surrounded by men and a fuming Gen.  
Leaning into the petite girl, Jensen asked her, “Are you two…?”   
“Oh, hell no,” she laughed. “I’m not jealous, just mad. I’m just counting up the money that we’re having to pass up because we’re trying to go straight and work legitimate jobs.”   
As she looked at the people continuing to crowd into the bar, she sighed, “Looks like there’s going to be live music tonight as well, Danni could have made a killing.”  
He was so not expecting that, so he shrugged his shoulders and took a swig of his Shiner Bock. As the cold liquid slid down his throat, he realized that it would be so easy to drink away his problems and forget about the six foot plus problem that was plaguing him.  
Jensen didn’t get drunk because he had to make it back home in this neighborhood and not being aware of his surroundings was a bad idea, and besides, there wasn’t enough alcohol in the state of Texas to make him forget all of his problems.  
So he nursed his drinks and smiled at the good natured ribbing from Gen and Danni about him being a lightweight, listened to some music and danced a little with the girls. He was having fun.   
Around ten o’clock the lights dimmed and a man stepped on to the small stage and began speaking into the microphone, but he was drowned out by the loud cheering when he began to speak. The girls had told him the draw to the place was the music and judging by the cheers, it must be exceptional.  
Finally giving up, the man stepped off the stage and the lights dimmed and a voice strong, pure and familiar rang out.  
This was a voice that took him back to sandboxes, baseball diamonds and the musky smells of his parent’s basement where two lifelong friends practiced with hopes of setting the music world on fire. His best friend Chris was here and suddenly there was a little more peace in the world.   
When he was first arrested Chris’ music had begun to get some notice locally, and that was hard to do when everyone in the tri-county area sang in the same genre. Chris had managed to stand out singing original songs the friends had co-penned.  
When Jensen’s name began to hit the newspapers daily, the backlash began to stick to Chris. Thinking that he was going to be exonerated, at first Jensen held steadfast to the friendship, but when he was sentenced and Jeff had come into the picture, reality had set in and he refused Chris’ letters and visits. There was no reason that they both had to be wrongfully convicted.  
As Chris sang, Jensen settled himself into the corner of the booth and sipped on his lukewarm beer. As the music washed over him, Chad, Jared and the girls were replaced by something much more pleasant.   
For a moment he was sixteen again sending shy nervous smiles to Stephen, the cute neighbor boy who sat two seats in front of him in Mr. Beaver’s calculus class while Chris was in the desk next to him giving him hell for being such a girl.  
This was a time when his only worry was whether he and his friends were going to the diner or the bonfire or both after the football game.  
The beer that he was slowly peeling the label from was supposed to relax him, but it was the gravel smooth voice of his friend singing a song they'd written years ago that truly put him at ease.  
Jensen was so lost in his memories, that he hadn’t noticed that the music had ended until he heard his name being called.  
“Jens?” an emotion filled voice pulled him from his memories.  
Staring up owlishly at Chris, Jensen felt both amazed and embarrassed now that his friend was standing in front of him.   
“The music was good and all pal, but we don’t need a private performance,” Gen told Chris as she blocked Chris from Jensen’s line of vision.  
“Speak for yourself,” Danneel purred, “because I sure as hell won’t turn it down.”  
Clearing his throat and gently pushing Gen aside Jensen told her, “It’s okay, Gen, he’s a fr… I know him.”  
Sliding along the booth until he reached the edge, Jensen stood up if front of his old friend. Looking down at the shorter man, Jensen smiled as he remembered all of the short jokes he’d told at Chris’ expense.  
“They give me a small room off the stage, let’s go there and talk,” turning to Danneel, Chris grinned and said, “once me and this asshole catch up, I’ll take you up on your offer darlin’. Jensen?”  
“Sure.”  
“Well, can’t say that you exaggerated about the size of the room,” Jensen joked as he closed the door behind him.  
Before the snick signaled that the door was closed Chris - his tough as nails friend, Chris - was hugging him.   
There were no words exchanged between the old friends and they expressed six years of emotions in a single embrace. If Chris was feeling the same as Jensen, then the tough as nails was close to or already shedding a tear as the impossibility of what was happening played out.   
Chris cleared his throat as she stepped out of the embrace and backed away from Jensen stopping only when the back of his legs hit the small vanity that doubled as a desk and a makeup mirror for the talent.  
“Damn son it’s so fucking good to see your ugly mug,” Chris declared in a voice thick with emotion.  
The only response that Jensen could give was a smile because he was just as choked up. Years ago he would have given a smart ass reply, but prison had taken his cockiness and confidence and the only thing he could give was the unsure upturn of his mouth.  
The look Chris shot him told him that he understood, that he knew that this was not the Jensen he’d last seen being led away in leg chains, but they would be okay.  
“Chris,” Jensen started huskily.  
This moment was surreal to him. He never thought that he would see his friend again without bars or a solid piece of glass and a telephone form communication between them. After his first week in lock-up he simply hadn’t wanted Chris to see him - or what he was becoming, so he’d shut the other man out. Letters and visits had been refused and now he stood here hoping that his friend would let him rebuild the bridge that he’d destroyed.  
Holding up his hand, Chris stopped Jensen’s words, “At the time I didn’t, but now I understand why you did what you did, so please don’t drag this out Jens. Six years have been taken from us and I don’t want to waste a minute of it talking about things that you can’t change.”  
“I know that you get it, but I still have to say the words, Chris,” Jensen shrugged. “It’s just - I didn’t want you to be tarred and feathered just because you were being a friend.”  
“Always had to be girly about things didn’t you?” Chris laughed. “You didn’t have to apologize for that, but, I think I owe you a serious ass kicking because you didn’t bother to tell me that you’d been released. You’re free when that judge said that if it had been up to her she’d give you the needle.”  
“New evidence,” Jensen told his friend nonchalantly as though the discovery of the DNA evidence hadn’t changed his life.  
“That’s great, but still you could have let me know. I still talk to Josh from time to time and I know that our mamas still talk. You’d think that this would have been all over the news especially since they tried you in the Media.”  
A chill worked its way through Jensen’s body as he remembered the hellish news coverage during the trial. Long before Sterling became the stuff of his worst nightmare, Nancy Grace held that place of honor.  
“I’m still persona non grata in the family, they have told me that I’m not wanted, and as far as the media, once was enough. Jeff wants me to sue the state of Texas, but things are settling down and I don’t want to draw attention to myself.”  
“Josh was always an ass, but I think that Jeff is right. That new evidence didn’t come out of thin air. Make ‘em pay Jens.”  
Jensen laughed but couldn’t disagree.  
“Do you need anything, Jens? I mean it, anything. I can help you so don’t think that I don’t mean what I’m saying.”  
“No, I can’t take your money Chris, the only thing I need right now is a place to live but I can’t have that until I save enough.”  
“My music is finally paying off Jensen, so I can help. I have a week left of my tour, hell, I’m only in town because I didn’t want to miss my mama’s birthday. Let me wrap things up and then we’ll work on a place for you.”  
His pride wanted to tell Chris no, but the reality of who was waiting at the house made him push his pride aside and agree to take the singer up on his offer.  
The next few minutes were spent talking and reconnecting. Jensen listened as Chris regaled him with stories about his tour, his friend Steve and his family.  
There were no stories from Jensen, because there was no way he could share the horrible existence that was his life; couldn’t share the fact that he’d been raped everyday so he just smiled and enjoyed the yarns that his friend shared with him.  
Not wanting to take advantage of Loretta kindness, Jensen told Chris that he had to leave, but they exchanged telephone numbers. Jensen gave Chris the number in Loretta’s office and at the church with a promise to call later in the week.  
Now he had another reason to get that cell phone. His list of friends was growing.  
When they opened the door, Gen and Danneel were waiting and Gen had the most ominous scowl on her face.  
“You okay, Jen?” She asked keeping her eyes trained on Chris.  
“I’m fine, Gen. He’s good people and my friend.”  
Giving them both a once over Gen relaxed and let the pair pass.  
Chris refused to let the group walk back and embarrassed about his current living situation, Jensen tried to beg off.   
“Jensen, he knows that the place is a halfway house and you have no control of where you’re living right now, so shut the fuck up and take the ride,” Gen demanded. He often wondered how she managed to survive on the streets, but now he knew because she terrified him.  
After a long day at work and the evening out, Jensen was tired when finally arrived back to the house but instead of going in, he sat on the swing on the front porch.  
Later he made his way inside after reflecting on the night’s activities and the reunion with Chris, Jensen forgot the reason he’d gone out in the first place, but once he was standing in front of his room, it all came back to him because Sterling was waiting for him.  
“Welcome back, Jenny,” he greeted with a toothy smile. “You couldn’t avoid me forever. I’ve been here a whole week and you haven’t even sucked my dick yet, so I had to rectify that.”  
Whatever confidence he thought that he’d gained left him the moment Sterling palmed his own crotch and he became that quivering, scared sixteen year-old kid again. He could hear the man’s deep voice quietly barking orders to him as he pushed the door open and stood on the threshold.  
“Jensen is that you?” Loretta’s voice penetrated his brain.  
“Yeah,” he answered.  
“How was your… Mr. Brown why are you here?”  
“Jensen and I were catching up,” he lied turning on the charm.  
Narrowing her eyes, Loretta looked at where the man was still cupping himself, “Looks like it’s a good thing I interrupted the reunion. You know the rules, you shouldn’t be in this room, and before you open your mouth and dig yourself into a deeper hole, I know that Jensen just came home. So for the violation of the rules, that’s five points.”  
“Loretta,” he began.  
“Go to bed before I add more.”  
Sterling stepped outside the room but he turned to give Jensen a final glance. His face was hidden by the dark shadows and Jensen couldn’t see the expression on the other man’s face, but he knew that this wasn’t over, that it only made him angrier.  
There was no sleep for Jensen, even in the twilight time just before the sun rose when he usually took a nap, he couldn’t sleep. His night had been spent listening for footsteps and the jingle of keys, but there had been none.  
Loretta had chased Sterling away giving him points for breaking her rules and Jensen was in awe as he watched the large man walk away not challenging her authority.  
A bleary-eyed Jensen followed the smell of freshly brewed coffee to its source on the kitchen counter. He was still half asleep and didn’t take notice of his surroundings until he had inhaled his first cup.  
“Hmm,” he moaned as he finished the last drop.  
“That’s a sound I tried to pull from you for years, seems as though I didn’t have the right incentive,” Sterling mused from the table.  
Taking a deep breath, Jensen turned and saw the man grinning at him. He was seated at the head of the table sipping on his own cup of coffee. Mike sat on the opposite end glaring at the dark-skinned man. As Sterling sat and openly mocked Jensen, Chad and Paul were busy cleaning and cooking breakfast. Jensen’s suspected that they were doing both for Sterling and his suspicions were confirmed when Chad placed a plate in front of the man.  
“Just in time Jenny,” Sterling addressed him with the name he’d learned to hate over the past six years. Holding out his cup, he said, “You remember how I like my coffee, right?”  
His first instinct was to follow Chad and Paul’s lead and just make the coffee - cream and three heaping spoons of sugar - but he felt Mike’s hard gaze and stopped.  
As much as he tells himself that he could be strong and create a new path for himself, following Sterling’s orders would change that and put him right back under the man’s thumb. He could just swallow his pride and make the coffee or he could grow a pair.   
“No,” He said. Not as convincingly as he wanted to, but it was a no all the same.  
It was hard to determine who was the more surprised, Sterling or everyone else in the room. When Sterling stood up, Chad and Paul swallowed visibly and stepped back, as Mike grinned like the loon he had been accused of.  
Mike’s smile gave him courage. There was always going to be a Sterling Brown in his life. It might not be to the extreme of the one standing before him now, but someone was always going to try to take advantage and if he didn’t stand up for himself, he would live his life in fear and he wasn’t prepared to do that.  
“Good morning gentlemen,” Loretta greeted the room as she, like Jensen before her made a beeline for the coffee pot.  
Jensen watched her as she took in the activity of everyone in the room. Sterling’s stance was formidable and obviously threatening and Chad and Paul were now cleaning the kitchen. He knew by the look on her face that something was wrong. He couldn’t see what was off but Jensen knew that moment that Loretta had figured it out.  
“Mr. Murray, Mr. Wesley, I make out the list each week for chores and I know that this week kitchen duty belongs to Mr. Brown, but here the three of you stand mocking my rules. Mr. Brown, can you please explain to me why you’re sitting on your ass while these two idiots are doing your work?”  
“They are just being kind Loretta, a little welcome home gift for an old friend,” Sterling answered smoothly.  
“That’s nice, but that welcome home gift is going to cost all three of you. Just for the record Sterling, I’m not Kripke and you will obey my rules. If you can’t then just let me know and I’ll arrange your trip back to jail.”  
The smile that formed on Jensen’s lips couldn’t be suppressed. Even with the look of hatred that was sent his way by Sterling couldn’t make him stop - it actually made him smile harder. There would be hell to pay later, that was a certainty, but right now he just couldn’t make himself care.

The exchange in the kitchen left Jensen in a good mood the rest of the day. For once he stood up for himself and it felt good. He didn’t want to spend the day hanging around the house because that was just begging for trouble, so he sat on the porch and talked to Mike until his boyfriend, Tom, came and took him away for the day.   
There was an awkward invitation from the men, but Jensen knew that they had a limited amount of time together and really didn’t want it encroached by a third party, so he declined the offer. Instead he walked around the neighborhood until he came to a mom and pops hardware store.   
In the bigger cities, Home Depot and Walmart made stores like this a rare thing, but in the little towns like Bennettesville they were still part of the culture. His dad had taught him the basics of home repair, but that wasn’t what drew him to the store.  
The flowers did.  
The yellow roses to be exact.   
They reminded him of time spent with his grandfather in his garden, and the prize winning yellow roses that he grew. He smiled as he remembered his grandfather telling him that it didn’t make sense to have a garden without the second most popular flower in the state in it.   
Jensen used to argue and asked how did he know that it was the second most popular, and his granddad would answer, “Well, they did write a song about it.”  
His choices at first were limited to what he could carry, but when the grandmotherly owner offered to deliver, when he left the store he all the tools he needed and a small garden that he spent the next two days installing.  
On Sunday night when he sat in his chair, he opened the window open to enjoy the smell of the earth and flowers. He planted yellow roses in memory of his grandfather, but until they actually bloomed, their fragrance was just a sense memory.

 

\--------

Jared’s head hurt. It shouldn’t come as a surprise given how much he drank the night before, but the knowledge still didn’t prepare him for the pain or the overall feeling of wretchedness.  
Tequila was the culprit, and he had helped by buying the bottle, so this feeling of chucking up his stomach and other vital organs, was his fault. He had attempted to drink away his guilt, and even chucking up vital organs was easier that remembering what he had done to Jensen.   
It seemed that when it came to Jensen he couldn’t stop fucking up. It’s just that each time he thought that he had a handle on who Jensen was, he was proven wrong. Chad had spent years behind bars with the man, yet everything he told him was so far off course. If he would be honest with himself he could admit it was all a lie and he really needed to stop listening to the man.  
He told himself that he needed to stop listening to Chad, but it was easier said than done. The pair of them have been friends as long as - well Jared doesn’t remember a time when they weren’t friends. Even their parents were friends, and as far as Jared knew Chad had never lied to him.  
There was genuine shock on his friend's face when he learned that Jensen was released because he’d been cleared of all charges.  
Even without Chad feeding him the wrong information, Jared couldn’t be blamed for the entire pedophile accusation because it was common knowledge. There had never been an announcement that he’d been freed because he’d been found innocent. There hadn’t been an announcement at all. Had Jared been in his shoes, he’d be screaming it from the highest point, but Jensen sat around like a wounded animal.  
Even though he had been proven innocent with the charges, that didn’t mean that the pretty - yes pretty - man was; as a matter of fact he was far from it. He had to admit that Jensen had the innocent thing down pat, but one thing that Chad had said was true, Jensen had been the prison bicycle. When he had visited Chad at the family day thing, he heard the others talk about it as well.   
Despite that fact the he had apparently fucked everyman in the prison he hadn’t deserved what Jared had done to him. He had called the police - not just the police but the ones responsible for Jensen’s false imprisonment. The look on Jensen’s face when he saw the men had been one of pure terror and that’s what Jared had been trying to drink away.  
Since that dick move, each time he tried to close his eyes for sleep, he saw that terror filled face, and each time he reached for the tequila.  
He wanted so badly to apologize but he’s scared of what he will do next to make the man hate him even more.  
When he sees the man he gets lost in those beautiful green eyes and those luscious lips and stupid shit comes out of his mouth. Okay maybe it is Jared’s fault, no one who had ever laid eyes on Jensen could not be drawn in by his beauty.  
They worked together every day and there was no way around it so Jared was going to have to figure out something because the church building project was going to take at least two months to complete.   
As it turned out, Jared was working himself up over nothing, from the moment he picked Chad up Jared secretly trying to get a glance at Jensen as he walked to the bus stop. Jensen must have taken an earlier bus, because he was at the church when Jared and Chad arrived. Plan B was to catch him on the church grounds, but that was not to be either because the stubborn man stuck to his office all morning  
When lunch rolled around, Jared took Chad downtown for lunch, and there stood Jensen Ackles at the counter. After trying to work up the courage to see him, Jared was unprepared for seeing him at the local diner, so he had to get his nerves together before approaching Jensen. That didn’t work, because like all thing concerning Jensen, his plan was blown to hell by the locals who recognized him.  
Arnolds on Main Street had been a mainstay for as long as anyone could remember, so at lunch time all of the locals piled in to get good cheap food and since he was buying Chad’s lunch until he got his first paycheck, that’s where they ate.  
He and the blond had settled down at one of the booths near the jukebox and had begun to study the menu when an eerie sound fell on the restaurant.  
Where there had been noisy chatter before, the only sound now was Jason Aldean wondering why he hurts someone he loves so much.  
Jensen.  
All eyes were on the pretty man standing by the register as he studied the menu and clutching onto a red and white bag from the cell phone store next door. The way he concentrated on it Jared wondered if he was oblivious to what was going on around him, but then he noticed the white-knuckled grip he had on the menu and knew that Jensen was aware of the stares that were being directed at him.  
“We don’t serve child molesters here!” a voice that sounded suspiciously like Mr. Beaver, his eleventh grade calculus teacher, yelled out.  
In his peripheral view, Jared could see the pharmacist, Andy Taylor moving towards Jensen. Before he could second guess himself, Jared was out of his seat and steering Jensen from the diner.  
“Chad, let’s go now!” Jared barked as he tightened his grip on Jensen’s arm before pulling him from the diner.  
Once outside Jared didn’t stop until Jensen was safely sitting inside Jared’s F-150 dually where he waited impatiently for a grumbling Chad to catch up.  
“Tell me again why we’re rescuing him?” Chad demanded as he buckled himself into the seat next to Jared, “because I agree with them he’s dangerous and should be locked up after what he did to that kid.”  
“But he didn’t Chad,” Jared reminded him, irritated and a little angry that his friend would leave Jensen to the angry crowd. Catching Jensen’s eyes in the rearview mirror he reminded his friend “You were there, you heard the lawyer, he was released because he’s innocent. Knowing that, you would have sat there and let them hurt him?”  
“No - no, Jared,” Chad calmed him, “it’s just that this isn’t our fight. If Jensen is so innocent then why is it him and his attorney are the only ones who know about it? I mean it seems that we should be reading about it, but we haven’t and he’s walking around town among the people who love and want to protect that kid.”  
Jared was silent for a moment because he had thought the same thing himself but the fact remained that he was released because of the new evidence and Chad knew it.   
Chad took advantage of Jared’s introspection and continued, “I know he looks innocent but he’s not. Even if they found something that proved him innocent for this, he spent six years inside, so he’s far from it so don't get mixed up with him.”  
“At least I have proof that I didn’t do what I was accused of,” Jensen said through gritted teeth, “Your conviction stands and you spent a few years behind bars as well. Shouldn’t he be more worried about you? I’m innocent.”  
“Yeah, right,” Chad snorted. “You and everyone else in jail.”  
“Except that they are still locked up and I’m sitting here arguing with your ignorant ass.”  
The truck became silent after Jensen’s last statement. Jared wanted to say something but he didn’t know how to address either man, and chances are that both men were going to be mad at him so he remained silent and drove back to the church.  
He really wanted to apologize for his prior actions but he knows that Chad would be mad at him for doing so, also he felt that somehow hey remember when I called the cops and almost got you killed, well I’m sorry wasn’t going to be enough to make up for his actions.  
He was still trying to find something to say to fill up the awkward silence when he heard Chad mutter, “Thought that you were going to buy me lunch, now I have to go back to work on an empty stomach.”  
“I’ll find you something,” Jared promised his friend. “I know that it’s not the diner, but there's a McDonald's on Bradshaw. I can get us something from there.” Catching Jensen’s eyes in the mirror again, he asked, “Jensen, you want something?”  
He could tell that the man was struggling with his answer, but eventually hunger won out and he said, ”Yes.”  
When he turned on Bradshaw, the famed golden arches were spotted immediately. He drove around the building to the drive through, but there was a car broken down in the drive through line so he was going to have to go inside.  
Fuck!  
He hoped that the two men didn’t kill one another once he was out of sight. He took Chad and Jensen’s orders and ran inside ignoring Jensen’s offer to pay.  
At the door of the restaurant, Jared turned to give the car one more glance, and shook his head as he went inside happy that so far there was no violence because blood would be a bitch to clean up.

 

Jensen removed a ten dollar bill from his wallet to give to Jared in exchange for his food. He wasn’t sure what a combo would cost, but he was sure that the bill would cover it. He’d learned the hard way that nothing was free and he certainly didn’t want to owe Jared Padalecki.   
Even though Jared defended him to Chad, Jensen knew that the man would throw his past in his face again and somehow the free meal would come into play.  
He wanted to hold onto his anger because of their last two meetings, but despite Chad’s protests, Jared saved his ass back there and he was going to have to find a way to make up for that.  
It wasn’t that he wasn’t grateful, because he was. If the crowd and Chad had their way, he would have been beaten to a pulp lying in a pool of his own blood. It wouldn’t be the first time, but it was not something that he wanted to experience again anytime soon.  
“Jared’s mine,” Chad told him.  
The snort of laughter couldn’t be held in.  
“You mean after all of those protestations about you’re not being gay, what you really meant is that you were just gay for Jared? That’s okay, I mean Mike’s Tommy waited for him. Or is it that after a good dicking you want to make a lifestyle change?”  
“Everything is not about sex. It’s not the same as it is for you. I mean you look at him and you want your boy pussy filled, but that’s not what I want from him. He’s like my brother and is the only family I have and I will not stand by and watch him get dragged under by a child fucker like you.”  
“What’s the matter Chad?” Jensen mocked. “Are you scared that if Jared pays attention to me that he won’t have time to spend with you? That if you acknowledge that I’m innocent that you’ll be the criminal and he’ll look at you differently? If he was as good a person -“ Jensen stopped when he saw the expression on the blonde’s face  
“Aww, poor Chad is worried. You think that he’s going to cut you out of his life the same as everyone else has, so you wanna make me the bad guy.”   
“Not worried at all,” Chad smirked. “Because between Sterling and the town folk, you have enough on your plate so you and Jare are not a worry for me.”  
“When I see you and Wesley risking going back to the joint making the man breakfast, I’d say that I’m not the only one who has to worry about Sterling.”  
There was no retort from the front seat. Chad turned around and stared out of the window looking as though he wanted to hit something and Jensen would make an excellent target. Jared returning to the truck stopped the assault.  
Placing the food on the seat beside Chad, Jared climbed inside and laughed as Chad reached for the cardboard drink holder and the bag of food. Soon the smell of food permeated the cab and the only sound was Chad munching on hot fries.  
“Here’s your money,” Jensen offered when they reached the church.  
“Lunch is on me today,” Jared smiled at him.  
For a moment Jensen was blinded by Jared’s beautiful smile and the appearance of dimples that he almost let the man walk away. When Jared refused again, Jensen tucked the money inside the pocket on Jared’s t-shirt and walked inside before the man could protest further.  
Normally Jensen would eat inside the cubbyhole that he called an office, but not today. After the confrontation with Sterling and the people in the diner, the room that represented freedom seemed closed in. Perhaps it was the size. He was sure that it was larger than the cell he’d been locked in, but today it didn’t seem to be.  
He sat in the chapel where he could spread out. He sat there and took comfort in the children squealing in the nursery and Henry’s booming laughter as he spoke to someone on the telephone.   
Placing his meal beside him, he took in his surroundings. All around him were the symbols of religion. There were crosses, stained glass and bibles filled with God’s word.   
Memories of church, Sunday school and Wednesday night bible studies assaulted him. All of the lessons that him mom and grandmother taught him came flooding back. He had believed it all, had believed that there was a benevolent God looking out for him, but that had been before he’d been left to rot in a 6x8 cell for six years.  
He’d called on him, on God. Each time he’d been sold, beaten or raped he’d prayed but there had been no answer.  
No avenging angel had come to his rescue - nothing came. If this omnipotent being existed then why did he let an innocent person suffer?  
“You look to be in deep thought,” a deep voice interrupted. “Sometimes it helps to talk with the pastor,” a man wearing a collar offered.   
“I don’t need a bible lesson right now,” Jensen told him as he sat next to him on the pew.   
Pastor Heyerdahl was the one responsible for him having this job and he didn’t want to offend him, but he was not up to being preached to. Not today.  
“Good, because I’m not offering one, just an ear to listen to whatever you want to tell me. I can’t imagine what hell you’ve been through in the past few years so I won’t pretend that I do, but I can see the pain in your eyes and if I can, I’d like to help you take away some of it.”  
Jensen hesitated for a moment. He didn’t want to think about, let alone talk about the humiliation he suffered at the hands of the other prisoners, but he could talk about what happened today and warn the man about the shit storm that was coming their way.  
Taking a deep breath, Jensen began telling the man about the day’s events and was surprised at the good advice he was given. The thing that surprised him the most was that God was not mentioned once, but his lawyer was. He advised Jensen to call the man and prepare for what was coming because it could get dangerous for all involved.  
When the pastor went back to his office, Jensen pulled out his shiny new phone and scrolled until he found one of the four names in his contact list, Jeffrey Dean Morgan. If he was going to have to go public, he wanted to be prepared.


	6. Chapter 6

  
Jared Padalecki was persistent if nothing else. The next morning after picking up Chad, he spotted Jensen at the bus stop and offered him a ride; a ride hat Jensen turned down every day. If the overgrown puppy could be stubborn, then so could Jensen.  
He held out until the thunderstorm.  
Even though he protested, Jensen was glad that the man showed up because he had no desire to stand in a downpour and have to work in wet clothing all day. Jensen was surprised to see Jared today, because on days like this, ground construction came to a halt. He really didn’t care why, he was just glad for the ride but Jared had to explain. It seemed that they were at a point now they could do some work even in this weather, so a limited crew would be working today.  
Jensen reluctantly climbed into the cab and seated himself behind a sullen Chad. As Jensen buckled himself in he remembered Chad declaring ownership on his friend and just for the hell of it he struck up a friendly conversation with the driver. He smiled as he could practically hear Chads teeth grinding in anger.  
Once they reached the church, Jensen climbed out and muttered thanks to Jared before practically running inside.  
As he powered up his computer, Jensen was thinking that between the rain and Jared the day couldn’t get much worse, but it did. Barely fifteen minutes later, he had Sandy McCoy, a parent of a child in the church’s daycare come into his office and prove him wrong.  
“Jensen?” She asked hesitantly.  
The look on her face, the tone of her voice and the stance of her body told him that this was not going to be the friendly conversation that they normally had.  
“Yes, Sandy,” he answered.  
“There’s talk… just. Please tell me that you’re not the same Jensen that raped Julie Ford’s little boy,” the young mother pleaded.  
He could lie, but then when she found out the truth, the little spitfire would be even angrier than she appeared to be now. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he replied, “I’m the Jensen that was accused, but I was released when the forensic lab found evidence that someone else committed the crime.”  
When she took a step back, Jensen knew that nothing he said was going to register, but he would try, so he waited for her response.  
“If that’s true, why hasn’t it been on the news like that man in Ohio?”  
“That’s simple,” he answered, “because I didn’t want the notoriety. It was bad enough the first time, but to go through that again would be hell.”  
“That sounds very noble, it really does,” she said through pursed lips, “but until I have something more concrete, then my son is going to another daycare.”  
“Sandy, I understand, but I promise you that I didn’t hurt that boy; I’m innocent.”  
“All I know is what I read or in this case, haven’t read. There have been several stories about people being released because they found new evidence. The problem is that you were not one of those guys. I like you, but I love my son and I can’t risk his safety on your word.”  
What could he say to that? Had he been in her shoes then he would have felt the same way, but the way she looked at him and the fact that she became scared still hurt.  
By the time he was ready for his first break, the weather had cleared and he escaped outside. He made his way to the spot in the back of the church where the storage shed was because it gave him privacy.   
Too bad Jared fucking Padalecki didn’t get the memo.  
“Hi, Jensen,” the big man greeted shyly. In another life Jensen would have found that cute and downright adorable, but right now the life he had was fucking falling apart and he didn’t need any distractions.  
“Hello again, Jared,” Jensen responded with a trace of bitterness in his voice.  
He knew that what was happening was not Jared’s fault, but he needed to vent and Jared was handy.  
“What’s wrong,” Jared asked, the shyness now gone.  
It would be nice to confide in the man just as he had done with the pastor yesterday. Wanted to tell him about the situation with Sandy McCoy but he didn’t really know the man so he held it in.   
“Nothing,” he replied.  
“Look Jensen for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. So Goddamned sorry about what I did because I had no right to put you in that situation, but my only excuse was that I thought that I was doing the right thing.”  
The expression on Jared’s face told Jensen that Jared was telling him the truth, and with no Chad around to tell him lies, Jensen kind of got sucked in by the cutest puppy dog face he’s seen since the puppy he’d gotten on his tenth birthday.  
While Jensen was working through his anger and fighting the attraction to Jared he missed the fact that Jared had walked closer and was not standing in front of him.  
When he looked up, he knew why Jared had moved closer, what he wanted. Hell, he telegraphed his intent from a mile away.  
Jared was staring at Jensen’s plush lips and the way his eyes tracked his tongue as it darted out to moisten his suddenly dry lips with want in his eyes.  
Stepping closer, Jared gave one more look seeking approval just before he slid his mouth against Jensen’s. Wanting this just as much, Jensen met him halfway.  
His first kiss and it felt so good.  
Jensen lost himself in the soft slid of lips, and the small nips that Jared was giving him. Being more experienced, Jared took over the kiss and deepened it. At first Jensen was a little nervous but he still enjoyed the feel of Jared’s mouth against his, but then it changed.  
When Jared pushed Jensen against the wall and began to plunder his mouth, forcing his way inside, Jensen began to panic. Suddenly in was too much.   
He was no longer in the back of the church, but in the prison being touched against his permission. At first he was drowning in the memories, but the rain that began to fall reminded him where he was and he began to fight.  
The struggle brought his crotch into contact with Jared’s making the taller man moan at the friction. Realizing what was happening Jensen stood still for a moment and pulled his mouth away.  
“Stop!” he demanded as he pushed Jared away.  
The action was so weak that it was ignored and Jared misread Jensen’s actions and took the as a signal to become a little rougher and pushed the smaller man back against the wall and pinned Jensen’s arms above his head and forced his mouth open as he took what he wanted.  
The actions triggered a fight or flight response in Jensen and this time he pushed and kicked until Jared got the message that Jensen was not interested, that this was not wanted.  
“Oh, so that’s how you like it,” Jared laughed before attacking Jensen’s mouth again. This time he was rougher as he began to bite and nip at Jensen’s mouth and along his jawline.  
As Jared continued his assault, Jensen began to struggle in earnest. He wasn’t in prison and there would be no one to assist Jared but neither would there be anyone to stop him either. If he wanted out it would be up to him, so he tried to give Jared another shove and free his arms at the same time, but the action was weak and ineffective, and coming across as though Jensen was trying to get some friction.  
Judging from the way Jared was moaning, it was working for the taller man and Jensen gave up because the anger was now replaced by fear. The fear made him stop fighting and stand there and let Jared take what he wanted.  
“Taste so fucking good, made for this,” Jared husked between kisses.  
When he heard those words he was transported back to his cell and Sterling or whomever had purchased him for the night. They had always told him a variation of this, had assured Jensen that he had an ass that was made for fucking and those lips for sucking cock. That was his only use in the world.  
Fuck-toy.  
Jared had just confirmed this.  
His body went slack as his fight left him, and he knew that Jared was aware that his prey would no longer fight because he let go of Jensen’s arms and let his large hands roam until they stopped at the top of Jensen’s jeans.  
Jared came to a stop and looked into Jensen’s eyes for all the world as though he was asking for permission to continue, as though he would give Jensen a choice in the matter. As he waited for the assault to begin, Jensen closed his eyes because he couldn’t bear to look at this man whom he’d felt a slight bit of attraction.  
When Jensen felt the button give and the teeth of the zipper give, something broke inside his chest. All of the newfound freedom he’d felt was gone, washed away with the tears that were now trailing down his face.  
Just as the thought that things could get no worse, his own fucking body betrayed him. With each stroke of Jared’s hand he became harder. He’d taken biology, knew that he could respond to stimulation, but no book could ever teach him how to get rid of the feelings of shame that came with the stimulation.  
“So good, Jensen, so good,” Jared was whispering between kisses and Jensen wanted to yell at him to shut up. He had what he wanted there was no reason to pretend otherwise.  
The closer Jensen was to coming, the more the tears flowed and when he finally came, he prayed for Jared to leave, but he didn’t. Even behind his lids, he could feel Jared staring at him, willing him to open his eyes.  
“Why the tears Jensen?” a puzzled Jared asked when Jensen finally looked at him.  
What was he supposed to say? It seemed as though his ability to speak had been taken along with his cock.  
Jensen’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment and shame. In prison he had no say, there was no stopping the others and he had learned to keep quiet and bear it, but that was not the case here. Did he not protest enough or did he give in too soon. His body responded and was that what Jared listened to rather than his pathetic protestations?  
“I didn’t want this Jared… I.”  
“What are you saying Jensen? You were with me all of the way,” Jared argued. “Is this the game you played in prison?”  
“I know I’ve been gone a while, but no still means no,” Jensen whispered.  
“No - no you don’t get to claim rape because I know that you are far from the blushing virgin you’re pretending to be, hell you’re hanging out with whores, so don’t tell me that you didn’t know the score.”  
Some of the angry words were familiar to Jensen and wrapped around him like a hair shirt, painful and unwanted.  
“Jared, man you finished jacking off because the inspector is here,” Chad kidded laughingly as he rounded the building. “I guess you were doing a little more than that, huh? Wow. On church grounds too.”  
“Not too much,” Jared contradicted his friend as he gave Jensen a look of contempt. “It seems that someone wants to be a prissy little cock tease like he’s some little virgin instead of the used goods that he is. I’ll go meet the inspector since there’s nothing here worth having to schedule another appointment for.”  
It didn’t take long for Jared to disappear around the corner, and once he was gone Jensen still found himself plastered to the wall of the building. The situation should have been awkward, standing there with his dick hanging out but this was a situation Jensen had found himself in over the years. Chad had been one of the people who had placed him there, so he just waited for the blonde’s next move.   
“I warned you about him,” Chad reminded Jensen. “I told you to stay away from him but you didn’t listen, so I’ll just have to play hard ball and I promise you’ll wish to God that you had.”  
Hard ball, what could be worse than what he was experiencing now? Standing there in broad daylight with his pride and his pants around his ankles while he did nothing. The situation was surreal. One minute Jensen was enjoying his first kiss and the next he was being attacked then threatened.  
When Chad left, he slowly pulled himself together before someone else walked around the corner. He should be used to this, being stared at and used but things had changed and Henry and Pastor Heyerdahl were making him believe that he could do this but once again he found himself gathering the remnants of his soul and going back into the church.  
The rest of the day was a blur; apparently Sandy McCoy had been talking because two more mothers withdrew their kids to protect them from Chester the child molester. Their actions only served to make him feel worse because if this kept up he might be out of a job.  
Five o’clock took its own sweet time coming, but thank goodness it didn’t take long for him to get home. The squeak by the hall table gave away what he had hoped to be a stealthy entrance.  
“Jensen? How was your day?” Loretta asked.  
Of course he would break down now.  
His room was supposed to be the safe place, where he could break down and cry before facing the house, but Loretta ruined that and now he found himself spilling his guts to her about the day’s events.  
Too caught up in his emotions, Jensen missed the hard stares that Sterling was giving him from the corner and the murderous ones Mike was giving both Sterling and Chad.  
If he thought that Loretta was going to give him soothing platitudes he couldn’t have been more wrong; she let him cry out his frustrations before she began to speak.  
“Jensen, I can’t imagine to understand what it is that you’ve gone through and I won’t pretend otherwise, but you’re stronger than this. Hell, you’re stronger than you realize. Others can see it but if you don’t then it does no good. If you need help then let me set it up for you, but don’t let this dictate your life. Don’t let those bastards win.”  
“They won the minute the judge read the guilty verdict, Loretta. I lost everything, my family, my friends and my freedom.”  
“If your family and friends gave up on you so easily then you don’t need them. You only need positive people in your life. You have those two girls Danni and Gen, they love you and are always checking up on you. Then there’s Mike. Those are friends, not the bastards you left you alone when you needed them the most.”  
“I know - it’s just that. I miss my mama,” he admitted.  
“I know it’s not the same, but you have me,” she offered as she opened her arms to him.  
Jensen didn’t even think twice, he walked into the warm embrace and cried for the loss of the people whom he thought loved him and he cried for the plans that he had been forced to give up and he cried for the boy that he’d once been and for all of the shit that was happening in his life.  
Gently breaking the embrace, Loretta looked at him and smiled, “You’re strong Jensen, and you’re just being tested. The devil is riding you and you’re going to come out of this stronger than ever. I remember as a little girl I never had much patience. Some people say that I still don’t, but what you see today is hard earned but still a work in progress. One of the ways I worked to improve myself was to study the book of Job. Maybe you should too Jensen and learn that good things will come with patience and belief.”  
“I believe that the devil is in my life, but God not so much. If there is one he abandoned me a long time ago.”  
“You can’t believe that the devil exists without believing that God does a well,” she corrected.  
He just offered her a weak smile. He was not going to have a religious argument with her because even if he was being tested then he had failed miserably and no God would claim or reward him.  
Even though he didn’t have a religious epiphany, he still left her office feeling somewhat better after their conversation. Jensen was still feeling a little raw and didn’t want to ruin anyone else’s evening with his foul behavior so he went to his room.  
He closed the door and froze in his tracks, because Sterling was sitting in his chair by the window.  
“Jenny, “he drawled, “I hear you’ve been a bad boy and have been trying to give my pussy away.”  
Just when he thought that this day couldn’t get any worse, it does, Sterling was here tainting the one place that was free of his presence and if the man had his way then he would be soiling a lot more than the chair.   
He felt his body start trembling and shaking because this was not Jared, this man in front of him smiling at what he had planned was not going to walk away after a hand job. He was going to violate Jensen and leave him broken and bleeding as he had in the past.  
Loretta was wrong, he wasn’t strong - he was weak and… wait. This wasn’t prison. Unlike the past, there was safety on the other side of the door.   
He turned and ran the short distance, but the big man was on him before he could get his hand on the knob and he began to panic when he felt the door handle give under the death grip he had on it.  
“Let him go,” Mike demanded.  
“Oh, look, crazy Mike has arrived to help,” Sterling laughed.  
“Crazy enough to take on your ass,” Mike countered. “We can do this one of two ways, loud and bloody ending with Loretta sending one or both of us back to the joint, or you can walk away and continue to enjoy your freedom. Doesn’t matter to me which you choose, but you’re going to leave him alone.”  
There was a war going on in Sterling’s head, he wanted to assert his dominance but he also knew that Loretta was not going to fall for his brand of charm and would send him back on the first thing smoking.  
“You win. This time, but Jenny, don’t think that this is over, you aren’t in here 24/7 and when you’re off these grounds, you’re mine.” Sterling gave him them both a glare before he walked out of the room.  
“Mike I don’t know what to say - how to thank you,” Jensen told the man.  
“Thank me by not letting these fuckers run over you. He’s going to try again, you know that right?”  
When Jensen nodded his head Mike continued, “You’re a big guy and having grown up in Texas I’m sure you’ve had your fair share of fights so damn it, defend yourself. Stop looking like a fucking deer in a headlight. Tom has waited for me because he loves me and I took the fall for him, but if I go back, if I get locked back up for protecting your pansy ass he’s moving on because I won’t ask him to wait for me. Don’t do this Jensen. Help yourself.”  
Mike didn’t wait for a response before he turned and walked out of the room.  
As soon as the door clicked shut, Jensen moved the chair from the window and slanted the chair under the door handle so it couldn’t be pushed opened from the outside. The door had a lock, but in a house full of criminals, he wanted to have some extra protection.  
There would be no sleep tonight as he had some things to think about, and the first being getting out of this place. A couple more paychecks and he would have enough to rent a small studio. That was in the future though because he had more important things to deal with.   
Chad.  
He knew that the other man hated him but until he found Sterling waiting on him he didn’t realize how much. It no longer mattered why, now he had to figure out how to get out of this place without getting hurt and putting Mike’s future in jeopardy.


	7. Chapter 7

The week didn’t get any better for Jensen. There were no more near mobs like in the diner but he was clearly not welcome by Bennettsville’s polite society. When he had to do business for the church he was always the last to be waited on or just downright ignored.  
Lunch was a no go as well. He often carried his lunch or waited until he was on the other side of the tracks to eat. It struck him as odd that the poor people, the struggling everyday working people gave him the benefit of the doubt and believed that the Texas justice system knew what it was doing when it released him while the pillars of society were ready to commit violence at the sight of him.  
Just like Sterling Brown.  
The man had Jensen scared shitless. He secretly stalked him in the house. It wasn’t anything overt because he didn’t want Loretta calling Aldis to revoke his parole, no he was very subtle. It was a look while they were cooking or cleaning, a bump when they were close or notes under Jensen’s door.  
The notes were what scared him the most. He knew that he should let Loretta know but it was as though the man had a remote control and made Jensen freeze when it came time to do something to protect himself.  
When he stepped off the bus, he didn’t want to play mind games with his tormentor so he walked down the street to a greasy spoon that served one of the best hamburgers that Jensen had ever eaten. He had gone there so much that he had his own booth.  
Once seated, Jensen grabbed the menu that was being held up between the mustard and the ketchup and pretended to study it, but he knew that he was just going to order the hamburger.  
“Hey, doll,” a familiar voice greeted him.  
“Danni!” He greeted with the first genuine smile that he had given all week. “You’re working here now?”  
“Yeah,” she smiled. “Gen too. It seems that the boys in blue are all over my ass, and not in a good way, to stay legit, so here we are.”  
Jensen placed his order and was going to talk to the redhead more but the door opened and she had to go greet the newcomers.  
“Here ya go,” a bored voice said as his burger was placed in front of him before that delivery person slid into the booth opposite of him.  
“Man you look like shit,” Gen declared after studying his face for a few seconds.  
“Thanks Gen, it’s good to see you too,” he returned.  
“I don’t get it. I mean you looked better when you were just released from prison - you should look better not worse.”  
Instead of answering her, Jensen looked at the food in front of him intending to take a bite, the hamburger cooked the way he liked, medium well and dressed the way he requested. The burger surrounded by crispy hot hand cut fries but it no longer held an appeal. He pushed the plate aside and placed an elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand and stared ahead blankly.  
“What’s wrong, Jen?” Gen asked again in the softest tone he had ever heard her use towards anyone.  
She disarmed him with her tone and he found himself spilling out the events of the past week. Because she was his friend, he expected sympathy but he got none from the petite dynamo.  
“You think that you’re the only one to have it tough Ackles? Try being a short woman on the streets. Hell, try being a woman on the streets period. I get it I do, remember we were locked up too and while you were scared shitless of Sterling, we were running from Betty Jo Timmons. She was a big bitch who had life and wanted to make others share her term with her. She took one look at Danni and thought she was going to make my friend her sex toy but it didn’t quite work that way. Danni and me we stuck together and Betty Jo learned how good that fiery redhead is with a knife.”  
“’S’not the same,” Jensen mumbled.  
“You’re right it wasn’t,” she agreed. “Men look at us and see these weak women but were not. Not by a long shot. Danni might act ditzy, but that’s all it is, an act. She survived every john because she took precautions and learned to defend herself as well as having me as backup.”  
“I had no one - still don’t,” Jensen replied softly.  
“You have us, but you have to be strong as well. I now that everything is scary now - Bennettesville, Texas, is a town of people who think that because they watch the RHOBH that they’re progressive but when something or someone like you shows up in their midst, they revert to their redneck roots to weed you out.”  
“How do I convince them that I’m not here to rape their children and have sex with their sons? Okay maybe sex with their sons,” he amended when Gen shot him a dirty look.  
“That part is simple, you’re not going to change their bigotry, or tradition as they refer to it, but you can stop hiding and make them think twice about coming after you without repercussions. Go public. Word on the street is that things are about to get ugly because of what happened with Sheppard and Roché. Get that fancy lawyer of yours to tell the world about what happened to you and why. It will shut everyone up and make them actually go after the person who actually hurt that kid.”  
He didn’t quite believe her, but he wouldn’t know if he didn’t try. It could make his family pay attention and get people to stop trying to attack him. The more he thought about it the more excited he became. The excitement fed his hunger and he picked up the burger and took a big bite.  
“My break is over,” Gen told him as she slid out of the booth, “but please think about what I said.”  
As the tiny woman made her way back to the kitchen, Jensen’s phone rang and a quick glance at the caller ID told him that it was Jeff.  
“Jeff - I need you to help me.”  
After a long conversation with his lawyer, Jensen felt he could do this; he could go public and let the world know what happened to him. The feeling fled his body when he saw Sterling on the front steps waiting for him.  
Jensen’s first instinct was to run, to get as far away from the man as possible, but what good was running going to do him when he had to come back here. He hoped that Chris would come through with a place for him soon because he wasn’t sure how much more he could take.  
“There’s nowhere to run Jenny,” Sterling mocked as though he read Jensen’s mind. “And you can’t go to your hideout without going past me.”  
When Jensen was a little boy his grandfather often told him that people didn’t know what you wanted if you didn’t tell them, they couldn’t read your mind so you had to speak yours. This seemed to be a good time to test grandpa Ackles theory.  
“Leave me alone, Sterling,” Jensen told the man but it came out more like a plea than a demand.  
“Now where’s the fun in that, Jenny?” Sterling sneered as he walked towards Jensen. “You’ve forgotten you place and I think that it’s time that I remind you.”  
Okay, so grandpa was wrong.  
Jensen panicked as Sterling came to a stop right in front of him, hoping that either Loretta or Mike would somehow come to his rescue as they had in the past but he was sure that his luck had run out. Both had told him that he was going to have to stand up for himself, and through that encouragement he convinced himself that he could. However, standing here face to face with Sterling he counted it as a win that he didn’t piss on himself.  
“First of all my name is Jensen, not Jenny,” Jensen told the man his voice trembling with the fear that had overcome him, “and secondly, I belong to myself.”  
“From the moment the judge sentenced you, you were mine so I’ll call you whatever I want. You became my good little fuck-toy and my very profitable whore. You think the absence of bars is going to change that? You’re even hanging out with whores now. Like attracts like and all - wait Gen hasn’t added you to her stable has she? If she thinks that she can steal my talent then I’ll take care of her as well.”  
“No!” Jensen denied hotly. “I’m not working for Gen and I’m not for you either. This time it’s one on one, Sterling, and if I have to then I will fight you.”  
“Aw look, Jenny went and grew some claws after I did my best to beat that out of you. It’ll be fun to do that again,” Sterling smiled and stepped closer to Jensen.  
Stepping back, Jensen forgot that he was so close to the steps and lost his footing and tumbled down the steps. He stood up a little dazed but not hurt, but he stood up quickly as he saw Sterling descend the steps. He did not want to be on the ground giving the bulkier man an advantage.  
He was scared shitless and Sterling knew it, Jensen could tell by the laugh that the other man emitted. It was warm and low and just this side of friendly, but held a threat that said I know how this is going to end.  
Mike had said that it would come to this and as much as Jensen tried to avoid it he knew that this was inevitable. A part of him was waiting for Loretta, Mike or anyone to come and save him, to stop this, but what if Mike comes? He would fight for Jensen but that would land both him and Sterling back in jail and Jensen didn’t want to be responsible for that.  
Sterling would be okay, but Mike, Mike would lose everything. No matter how much Tom loved the man Jensen was sure that he was not willing to wait another two years, and then there was the fact that now Sterling was aware that Mike was not crazy, it was all an act.  
So instead of running as his instinct told him. Jensen stood his ground and braced himself for Sterling to throw the first blow.  
The bastard played dirty, he didn’t hit Jensen in the face, he hit the blonde in the stomach, in his chest and in his kidneys and Jensen took all of this blows, until he realized no one was going to come in and hold him down if he fought back, so he did.  
The blows to his stomach hurt, but Jensen fought through that pain and aimed for the older man’s jaw. Sterling saw the hand coming and turned so it landed on the side of his head instead. Sterling was so surprised that he stopped and stared because his punching bag was fighting back. That brief moment allowed Jensen to land a second jab to Sterling’s stomach.  
Jensen landed a couple more punches but Sterling had done his damage and took an opening and landed several quick successive punches to Jensen’s stomach until stars swam in front of Jensen’s eyes and he passed out on the front lawn.  
When he came to Jensen dragged himself up on the front step and sat there until he no longer felt dizzy. If he had to spend all night on the porch, he was not going back into the house until Loretta, Mike or Ty came back.  
Mike arrived before Loretta and he helped Jensen back to his room and sat with him, pleading with him to tell Loretta what happened.  
“You need to tell her what happened,” Mike told him.  
At first Jensen was going to say no, but it was worth the humiliation if that would rid him of Sterling. What he and Loretta hadn’t counted on was Chad and the others in the house.  
Chad told Loretta that Jensen was hurt on the job and Paul vouched for Sterling, saying that he hadn’t been out of his sight and he definitely hadn’t seen a fight.  
It was then that Jensen figured out the other man’s strategy, no hits to the face, all body blows made it easier to confuse Loretta, and so Jensen just walked away. That night instead of sitting in his chair, he made sure that it was wedged under the door knob and he looked at his garden from the side of his bed.

Two days later when Jeff came to take him to his parents, he was still sore, but healing and strangely enough smiling. He stood up to Sterling Brown. There was going to be another confrontation, of that Jensen was sure, but at least he knew that he had the strength to fight back.

When Jeff parked in front of the Ackles house Jensen began to shake a little. His earlier bravado disappeared when Jeff turned onto his parent’s street. The house was nice, there was nothing intimidating about it, but it was no longer his home.  
His parents had purchased it in 1974 shortly after they married and instead of moving, they just altered the house to fit their growing family’s needs.  
The brick had been painted and beautiful flower beds and a manicured lawn added to its curb appeal. There used to be an apple tree in the front yard; Jensen and his dad had planted it when Jensen was seven and his teacher had taught his second grade class about Johnny Appleseed. Now the two bedroom one and a half bath ranch-style house was a five bedroom and four and a half bath and the place that nurtured Jensen’s childhood dreams.  
“You okay?” Jeff asked as he stood next to Jensen at the front door.  
He sighed heavily when Jensen shook his head. “I wish that this was different, that you were being welcomed with open arms as you should be, but this is what we’re gonna have to do to get this firestorm to die down.”  
That was easy for Jeff to say. It was one thing to fight everyone else and maybe understand that they didn’t believe him, but this was his family. The man who sired him and the woman who bore him. The big brother who taught him to throw a baseball and the little sister he doted on and they all… just gave up on him.  
The indecisiveness must have shown on his face as he stared at the wooden door, because Jeff rang the doorbell and waited for an answer. There was no going back now.  
The door opened and suddenly his dad was standing there. He wanted to reach out and hug the man but Alan Ackles just turned around and walked back towards the den where the rest of the family was gathered.  
As he followed his dad, nostalgia washed over him, his childhood and the pictures that he and Josh had begged their parents to remove. Well he got his wish because they were gone. When Jensen saw the empty places on the wall where he remembered his photos used to hang, the one in his high-school baseball uniform standing next to a trophy that was taller than him made him feel as though he had been stabbed in the chest.  
Also missing was the one of him and Josh dressed in their Easter finery. Not only were they gone but they had been replaced by photos of Colin Ford.  
He was older now, but Jensen would recognize that boy no matter how much bigger he was now.  
Suddenly it was too much.  
Was this the reason that Colin never told who actually hurt him? Jensen knew that after Colin’s’ father died it was just the boy and his sister and mother. Had the young boy been coveting Jensen’s family and this was as chance to get them.  
With Jensen gone it was easy for Colin to just slip into his place, a father, a brother and an extra mother, and pretty little Mack as a girlfriend.  
A part of Jensen knew that his train of thought was off, that this boy was just as innocent as he was, but that’s a by-product of prison, looking for an ulterior motive where there was none. Suddenly he looked away, ashamed that he could think like that about this kid.  
The fact that he even thought that made him sick to his stomach - literally.  
At the first taste of bile in the back of his throat he swallowed it down and tried to keep forcing in down, until he finally gave up fighting it and ran to the guest bathroom just off the living room.  
As Jensen emptied his stomach, he heard water running in the sink beside him before feeling a cool cloth on the back of his neck.  
As he turned to thank Jeff, he looked into the eyes of his best friend, Christian Kane.  
“Not all of us gave up on you bub,” he assured Jensen as he slid to the floor next to his friend. “Even if those assholes don’t come around, I’m working on some things to help you Jens, you ain’t alone.”  
Standing, Chris reached for Jensen’s hand and gently pushed his toward the door, “let’s get this over with.”  
They were all there, even his grandmother was sitting there on the sofa flanked by his mother and Josh. On the other side of Josh was a pretty pregnant blonde holding onto his arm for dear life. They all stared at him with disgust, with the exception of his grandmother.  
She smiled at him and he felt something flutter in his heart.  
Tearing himself from the warmth of his grandmother, Jensen noted the other people in the room, Danni, Gen.  
He took comfort in the fact that his friends were here for him. Even though life could get uncomfortable once this went public they cared enough to gamble their future. He was getting emotional in the face of the love being shown to him that he focused on the room.  
There was something different, but he couldn’t name what it was, he supposed that it would come to him in the middle of the night as things often did.  
“Let’s get this over with,” Alan demanded, “I want this farce over with before Mack and - well before Mack gets home.”  
That feeling that fluttered in Jensen’s chest, he now recognized as hope died a quick and painful death.  
“Alan let the boy speak,” grandma Ackles reprimanded him. “This is your son and you will treat him like the family that he is.  
“No our family is here,” his mother corrected her and that’s when he realized what the difference was in the room. There was no evidence that he had been in the family. They had taken down every picture, and removed his trophies that his dad had been so proud of. Now he knew what happened to the apple tree in the front yard. It had been a reminder of him and it had to go.  
“We agreed to this to get it over with so that we won’t have to deal with this sick fuck any longer,” Josh spat at them. “Too bad the state of Texas didn’t do his job and kill him and then we wouldn’t have to pretend that he no longer existed.”  
Jensen couldn’t hold back the gasp at the venom he heard in his brother’s voice and Jeff could hardly hold back Gen in her need to protect her friend.  
“You stupid son of a bitch,” she snarled “don’t you dare talk about him like that.”  
“I can’t talk about him any way I want, I know the truth,” Josh snapped. “Look at him bringing street trash into our home and allowing it to insult our mother!”  
“The insult wasn’t to your mother it was to dogs because they are better parents than she’d ever be. A dog would never abandon her pup!”

“Don’t you dare judge us you piece of trailer trash,” Alan defended his wife, “you weren’t there; you weren’t known as the family of the boy who raped kids. Just when things started to die down, the cops began sniffing around again because they were looking into cold cases they believed that he had committed. They think he killed some children. Killed them! What were we supposed to do?”  
“You were supposed to protect me, come to my defense. I’m so sorry that it was hard on you but you have no idea how hard this was for me,” Jensen said through clenched teeth.  
“No, you had made your bed, I had to protect my family. When they asked questions, I gave them the information they needed,” Alan said stiffly.  
“They were here?” Jeff incredulously, “Looking for information to frame your child again and you helped them?”  
“We didn’t give up anything, we told the truth. Besides, it’s not the cop’s fault that he’s a sick fuck.”  
“Alan!” Mama Ackles sternly warned.  
“I don’t get you,” Jeff told the angry man. “I spent years - fucking years trying to correct the miscarriage of justice and free your son and you can’t lift a finger to help, but when those two assholes with badges show up and you just hand your child over to them.”  
“What the hell Uncle Alan?” Chris chimed in, “He’s your kid and you left him to rot.”  
“There are no cameras here,” Alan sneered, “so don’t try to impress anyone with your outrage. It’s not as though you have been putting yourself out to see him either. You’ve been too busy accepting awards and sleeping with married women. Your mom told us how you sent him a few dollars for his commissary, so I guess that that is enough to alleviate your guilt.”  
Jensen noted the way Chris’ cheeks tinted pink at the mention of his rumored affair with a married singer that made its way through the gossip circuit a couple of years ago. Now he’s not so sure that it was just fodder for the news. He’d ask about that later.  
“He stopped coming because I asked him to,” Jensen interjected. “My family couldn’t be bothered and I didn’t want him to blow his chances with his career by being associated with me, so don’t compare him to you.”  
“Jensen, not everyone in this family feels that way,” his grandmother told him. “They wouldn’t listen when I told them that I thought you were innocent and no one would bring me to see you. Until the day he died, your grandfather felt the same. We even rescued all of the pictures and your belongings Alan and Donna tried to get rid of. You’re my grandson and I love you.”  
“I love you too, Nana,” he whispered to her. He wanted to give her a hug, but didn’t want to make his father angrier than he already was.  
“Despite your rose colored glasses, Jensen’s guilty,” Alan reminded his Mom as though he was talking to a child. “A jury of his peers agreed on that.”  
“Actually, he’s not,” Jeff contradicted him. “Had you taken the time to answer the fucking phone then you would know that. Those cops that you so gladly helped out, who tried to kill your son by the way, had withheld evidence that would have exonerated him.”  
“That’s not true!” Donna cried out.  
“True enough to get him exonerated and released from jail, all charges dropped and his record wiped clean,” Jeff countered.  
Jensen experienced a moment of triumph when his family was speechless, but that feeling soon turned to heartbreak when his mother said, “But he’s still gay.”  
“What do you mean that he’s innocent?” Josh asked holding a hand up signaling for his mother to quiet. “I mean he said something about being innocent but I thought that it... well that there was no way that was true.”  
“I’m speechless,” Jeff shook his head. “I’m not sure which of you to address first. I’ll go with the offensive one. You honestly think that he deserved to be locked away because he’s gay?”  
“He probably thought he was in heaven, dicks everywhere. This was a vacation for him,” his brother taunted, defending his mother still after Jeff’s announcement.  
“In that case why don’t we send your lovely wife there, Josh? I mean taking in her condition she obviously loves dick as well, let’s lock her away with violent men so she can get her fill,” Jensen challenged his brother.  
“Not so logical an argument now is it?” Danneel laughed.  
“Look, let’s just get this over with before there is bloodshed,” Jeff attempted to steer the conversation back on course. “We’re going public, and if you people spout this crazy shit then you’re the ones who are going to be prosecuted. We can…”  
“Dad I forgot my phone,” McKenzie announced as she rushed through the front door followed closely by a boy about her age. Once he was in the room, Jensen froze in his tracks because when the light hit the boy’s face he recognized his sister’s friend.  
Colin Ford.


	8. Chapter 8

As Jensen stared at the teenager all hell broke loose around him. He could hear his sister screaming at him and beating on his chest and any other body part that she could reach, Jensen could only stare at the kid who had lied and ruined his life.  
He continued to stare as Jeff and Chris pried the teenage girl off of Jensen while he just stood there. Once the commotion had died down, Jensen realized that Colin was staring back at him, his skin white with the same look of shock on his face.  
“What’s he doing here?” Mack screamed as she tried to break from Chris’ hold to get back to Jensen and attack him again. “This perverted bastard hurt Colin and now he’s here to hurt him again.”  
“No one is going to hurt anyone, and that includes you,” Chris told the girl as he struggled to get her under control. “If I let you go, do you promise to refrain from attacking your brother?”  
She nodded her agreement but once Chris’ arms dropped to his side, Mack launched her body at her brother again.  
“Stupid cunt,” Gen mumbled as she approached the girl and grabbed one of her flailing hands as it sought to hit Jensen again. “Stop it!”  
“Let me at him,” Mack screamed at the petite girl who was doing a better job of restraining her than Chris had.  
Alan and Josh jumped in the fray while shouting their displeasure of Gen holding Mack back from attacking Jensen, Danneel helped her friend and Chris stood out of the way while Mama Ackles prayed aloud from where she still sat on the sofa. Jeff wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be doing.  
Still with all of the commotion going on around them Colin and Jensen continued to stare at one another. Both were trembling with emotion, one from fear and the other from anger. Jensen wasn’t sure what his intentions were but as he stepped forward towards the teen, his mother slipped between them and held her arms out as though to protect Colin.  
“You’ve hurt him enough Jensen, leave him alone,” she warned. “I wasn’t there to protect him from you the first time. This child is like my son and I won’t allow you to cause him any more pain.”  
As Donna’s voice rang out in the room, everyone became quiet as they watched the scene before them play out.  
“What about me mama? I am your son why wasn’t I worth protecting?”  
“You are no longer my child because you hurt him and you’re dirty,” she sneered.   
Jensen chuckled, “But I didn’t. Hurt him that is. Isn’t that right Colin?”  
“Leave him alone,” Mack screamed again.  
“Yes, Jensen leave him alone, he’s been hurt enough,” Donna agreed as she backed up towards Colin.  
“Yeah, Colin we must protect you at all costs. Let’s forget about the fact that your lie cost me six years of my life and then stole my family while I was rotting away in the prison that you condemned me to.”  
“He didn’t take anything,” Alan contradicted Jensen. “We welcomed him and were blessed that he came after what you did to him.”  
“I didn’t do anything to him,” Jensen denied. “Did I Colin?”  
“We know what you did, we saw the pictures,” Donna countered, “and we saw how you left him broken bloody and raw. “  
“He was a fucking kid,” Alan growled.  
“So was I,” Jensen reminded him. “More specifically I was your fucking kid, but none of that mattered when it was happening to me. Someone hurt him but it wasn’t me, was it Colin?”  
“Stop torturing him,” Mack was now begging.  
“Torture is being held down while six, maybe seven could have been twenty, and I don’t know I lost count, men rape you because you were convicted for something I didn’t do, right Colin.”  
“Stop it Jensen, please,” his grandmother begged.  
“Who raped you Colin?” Jensen asked again.  
“Stop it…” Donna told him.  
“Who was it Colin?” Jensen demanded this time.  
“Mr. Beaver… it was Mr. Beaver,” Colin admitted.  
“Well, fuck!” Jeff mumbled.  
Jensen felt some satisfaction as he watched his - no the Ackles reaction to Colin’s confession. Both Donna and Mack were a hair's breath away from causing him bodily harm, staring at Colin. Had he not been the reason for losing his freedom, Jensen would have felt sorry for the boy.  
While he didn’t feel sorry for him, what he did feel was relief. After all of these years, someone else was saying that he was not guilty and it felt good.  
Then his mother spoke.  
“Colin?” Donna questioned, “Honey it’s okay, you don’t have to do this because you’re scared, Jensen is not going to hurt you again.”  
“He. He never hurt me in the first place. It was Mr. Beaver and when the police told me to tell everyone that it was Jensen, I was too scared to say anything different. By the end of the trial I had almost convinced myself that it was true.”  
“Jim Beaver? My friend Jim Beaver hurt you?” Alan asked.  
“Yes,” Colin answered as he shot pleading eyes towards Jensen.  
Why was he doing that? Jensen hoped it wasn’t a plea for forgiveness because Jensen had none.  
“I don’t believe Jim did that. Jensen did and that’s a fact so don’t you sully a good man’s name,” Donna soothed the teen.  
The knowledge that his mother would rather defend the man Colin named as his attacker rather than his own son made Jensen want to push harder, to know why Colin didn’t speak up.  
“Why Colin, why didn’t you speak up before?” he demanded.  
“It was easier not too,” the teen admitted.   
“While you were taking the easy route, when the judge read the guilty verdict, I was being sold in the rec room, I’m told the price was twenty cases of cigarettes. As you went on with your life, and slept in your own bed, I was left to worry all night and allowed to breathe a sigh of relief only to be gang raped in the shower.”  
“Oh, God Jensen,” his grandmother exclaimed.  
Jensen ignored her outburst and continued, “I fought back, but I was too dumb to know that they liked that. I fought so hard that they broke my leg in two places. The shit hurt so bad that I passed out, but they pressed on that leg to bring me back around. They wanted the fight and for me to know what was happening to me.”  
This was a story that Jensen never wanted to tell in polite company and certainly not in front of his family, but only his grandmother seemed to care. They never spared his feelings and now he didn’t want to spare theirs. His only regret was that his beloved Nana was still in the room.  
“After they finished they dumped me back in my cell and left me there for a couple of days. Until the guards could no longer ignore my condition and I was taken to the infirmary. After I healed a bit, the next time it was only ten guys this time because Sterling, the man who bought me, owed the Aryans and fucking me was payment.”  
“Jensen that’s enough!” Alan warned as Mack fought this time not to get to Jensen but to make it to the fancy trash can to throw up.  
Jensen smiled when he saw that it was only dry heaves.  
“What’s the matter you can’t take it? Too hard core for your sensibilities? You don’t want to hear how even after they put me in solitary confinement I was rented out each and every night? Did you know that since I’ve been out I met someone that I thought was a nice guy, but he thought that what I went through in prison made me fair game? My family thinks that I’m not worth shit, why should anyone else?”  
“I care Jensen,” Mama Ackles contradicted him as she held out her arms for her grandson.  
After a moment’s hesitation, Jensen walked over to his grandmother and melted into her embrace.  
“Oh, God what have we done?” Josh mumbled over and over.  
“You gave up when you should have fought,” Chris answered not bothering to hide the derision in his voice.  
“I think that were all a little emotional right now, so we need to try this tomorrow. Just so you know the basics, we’re setting up an interview with CNN and MSNBC to announce that Jensen has been exonerated, but I want his family there.”  
“Give us time…” Alan stared.  
“Of course we won’t be there…” Donna said at the same time. “Colin needs us.”  
“Colin?” Jeff said in disgust and pointed to where Jensen was still being comforted by his grandmother “Look at the mess that is your son because of Colin and your dear friend, Jim. I know that Colin didn’t ask for what happened to him but he delivered Jensen to them.”  
When Donna didn’t respond Jeff just shook his head in disbelief. Around the room, everyone else was looking at Jensen with shock on their face. Everyone except his mother.  
“You know what come, don’t come, I really don’t care, but know that we will go public and as soon as we can compare the DNA found on Colin to Jim Beavers, we will. And you know what? We’ll give the story to Nancy Grace and shove this shit down that bitch’s throat.”  
“Jeff, I need Loretta,” Jensen said softly.  
“Who’s Loretta?” Donna asked as she watched her son extricate himself from his grandmother’s arms.  
“Someone who treats him like a mother,” Jeff told her before helping Chris get the man back to his car.

 

Jared felt like the biggest idiot on earth. He thought that he was getting somewhere with Jensen and it turned out that the pretty man was the dick that Chad had painted him to be. Jared wasn’t a virgin, far from it, but you didn’t see him pretending that he was innocent and scared. If Jensen has had even half of the dicks in him that Chad claimed then he could teach Jared a lesson, but he didn’t hold it against the man. However trying to make him feel like a rapist? Now that shit pissed Jared off.   
There have been several times this week that he had thought about going into the office and confronting Jensen, but his pride wouldn’t let him. The man who had allowed himself to be fucked by multiple men at once, tried to make him feel dirty.   
He needed a drink. It was times like this that he regretted the fact that Chad was still on lock down and he had to go alone. This was not something that he wanted to share with most of their other friends especially since they didn’t know he was gay. Bennettesville was not the place to come out.  
The club was one that he’s passed several times when he picked Chad up from work, but he’d never been to. It often boasted great live music and a couple of weeks ago Chris Kane had played there so it couldn’t be that bad.  
All he wanted was a drink to wash away the hell he’d been going through and forget about terrified green eyes, and when he walked in the first person he saw was that Danni girl. Fuck!   
She was heading his way and as though by some unspoken communication between them, her short friend on the other side of the room was making her way towards him as well. His first instinct was to turn and run, but these are the type of women to hunt him down and castrate him on principle.   
He still shuddered at the memory of how that tiny woman shook Jeff down for the time Jared had wasted with Danni.   
“Ladies,” he greeted them with the salutation his mama and grandma drilled into him. Both would be shocked and ashamed if he used the greeting he really wanted to.  
The little one scared him so he tried to talk to the flighty one, but the expression on her face told him that that was just an act, that he should be scared of them both.  
“You just had to fuck with him didn’t you,” Danneel accused as she jabbed a finger into his chest, “just had to get a taste no matter the cost to him, huh?”

 

Jared didn’t feel like defending his actions to these working girls. Apparently Jensen had run to them with the lie that Jared had tried to force himself on the other man.  
“Look at him Gen,” Danni continued, “he thinks that he’s better than us - better than Jensen.”  
“Yeah,” the pint sized terror agreed as she sized him up, “that seems about right - he thinks that he’s better than us but hangs around an asshole like Chad.”  
Jared was not in the mood for this. He had already been made to feel like a rapist by Jensen and even though he had done nothing wrong the haunted look in the young man’s eyes made him feel as though he had, and now he had to defend Chad and that was more than he was willing to deal with.  
Standing so he towered over the women, he said, “Chad is better than the both of you,” Jared defended his friend, “sure he made mistakes but unlike some people he’s not out here repeating the same mistakes and selling his ass on the street.”  
“He’s got balls Danni, I’ll give him that,” Gen laughed “and they are huge ones to if he’s standing there judging us while siding with a man who was in jail for beating up a gay kid for standing too close. And if that isn’t enough he’s judging us when he tried to purchase said ass when he was in the middle of his big gay crisis.”  
“That was him?” Danni laughed again, “You’d think that I would remember his gigantor ass especially when he was throwing up when he saw my pussy. That could give a girl a complex.”  
He vaguely heard the pair as they mocked him. He was stuck on the accusation that Chad had gone to jail for gay bashing. He would like to say no, but Chad never told him what the charges were and at the time it didn’t matter, but now it did.  
“Hey, Honey,” Danni greeted a biker type who came to stand next to her. After whispering something in her ear she allowed him to pull her away.  
“You need to get off your fucking high horse and stop taking the words of others and find out what the truth is. If you did that then you wouldn’t be on the wrong side of the tracks drinking your troubles away,” she told him before she went to join Danni.   
Her harsh words rang in his ears as he threw back a couple of shots of tequila. He wouldn’t be getting drunk tonight, but he did need something to settle his nerves before he headed home.  
His dogs greeted him when he opened the door to his house and he relished the loved they showered him with. After the day he had it was kind of nice to be taken at face value. He fed the dogs and took them for a walk as he tried to figure out the enigma that was Jensen Ackles.   
It was easier to find information on Chad (or rather useful information) than it was on Jensen. Because his trial was sensational and the fact that Nancy Grace used him as a bench mark for pedophiles, a lot of the information was hearsay and what Jared knew to be lies.  
As he read the information about Chad, it seemed that his friend was full of lies as well. He was convicted for a hate crime. Specifically a hate crime against someone who was gay.  
Jared was gay, did Chad hate him?  
It would be so easy to try to numb his feeling and slow down the thoughts that were racing through his brain with the bottle of whisky he had tucked away in the cabinet, but that would mean in the morning he would not be in the best condition to have a conversation with Chad.  
He didn’t need it anyway because the tequila that was flowing through his veins was already working and he fell into a deep sleep where he dreamed about Jensen.  
The dreams were sexually vivid and he awoke so hard that his balls hurt. He lay there in the bed with balls that were full and heavy, but he thought that if he didn’t move, didn’t breathe, maybe close his eyes then he could will it away.  
The problem with that was that when he closed his eyes, he was transported back to the spot behind the church and he had Jensen pressed up against the building but this time there were no false protestations. Jensen was willing and the sweet little cries that fell from the plush lips made Jared even harder.  
Giving in to what his body wanted, Jared tweaked his sensitive nipple before letting his large hand wander down his stomach until his fingers were touching the coarse hair at the base of his cock and then wrap around his aching member.  
He gave a couple of tugs and it felt good - but it wasn’t quite the friction he wanted. Reaching over to the bedside drawer he found his astroglide and squeezed a generous amount onto his hand. Once he was slicked up Jared gripped himself and began to fuck his hand.  
The tightness of the grip and the easy slide made it easy for him to imagine that he was actually buried in Jensen’s tight ass and that the smaller man was gripping his cock and he thrust in.  
Jared closed his eyes and imagined Jensen straddling his hips, and his dick sliding along Jensen’s crack with ease because of all of the lube that Jared’s used. And Jensen was smiling.   
It was possible that the man did not know that the muscles in his face worked to form a smile as well as a frown, but in Jared’s world he did.  
He was beautiful.  
Behind his eyelids Jared’s memory placed the cute freckles across the bridge of Jensen’s nose and he wondered if they stopped at the man’s face. As his hand wandered down Jensen’s body, after he tweaked the right nipple Jared noticed a small grouping of freckles and as his finger zig zagged between the firm pecs a smattering of cinnamon colored dots were left in its wake.  
And then there was Jensen’s cock. It was a thing of beauty already but when Jared made his first stroke, there was a freckle right in the middle of the thick shaft.  
He could see himself tugging on the cock making his lover so hard that he could no longer see that freckle because it was turning red from the stimulation.  
Jensen lean forward and whispered, “Want you in me,” as he lifted his hips and let the head of Jared’s cock catch at his well-prepared hole.  
Jared whined as he imagined Jensen sliding down his cock until Jared’s dick disappeared in the tight pink hole.  
This was Jared’s fantasy, so Jensen was loud letting his lover know how good he felt. As Jared twisted his hand on the down stroke, it was Jensen tightening the muscles in his ass, milking Jared until he came.  
As he worked himself through his orgasm, Jared knew that he had to find a way to make this come true. Of course he had to first find a way to make Jensen trust him enough to get a kiss, let alone a fuck.  
The first step was to get to the bottom of the stories that Chad was spreading and what really happened to land Chad in prison. 

 

When Jensen woke the next morning he was a little disoriented, and was not sure where he was but he smelled coffee so it couldn’t be that bad. His attempt to open his eyes was difficult at first because his eyes were glued shut and he rubbed them until they opened.  
There was someone sitting in his chair and he was startled because his first thought was that it was Sterling, but it was Loretta bearing his elixir.  
“Good morning, Jensen,” she greeted warmly. “How are you this morning?”  
Taking the cup from her, he took a sip and answered, “Better now.”  
“You don’t have to do this you know,” she told the frightened man. “If it’s too much then tell Jeff no. You’ve been hurt enough.”  
It was tempting to agree with Loretta and just say the hell with it, but if he agreed to do that he would always be (in some people’s eyes) guilty. He wanted to be able to walk down the streets without fear; but most importantly, to show his mother that she had no reason to hate him.   
“That’s not an option for me anymore, Loretta.” Jensen disagreed, “My parents and my attorney decided that giving interviews was best for me and it took away any anonymity I might have had. When Nancy Grace picked up the story and ran with it, she made Sheppard and Roché national heroes and they made me, a sixteen year old kid, the villain. People who didn’t know that I existed before now know who I am, so when I go to the right side of the tracks I’m vilified.”  
“You’ve got to do something because I know you have trouble here as well,” she advised him.  
“What - I don’t understand,” he stuttered.  
“Boy do you think that I’m blind? I know that Sterling terrifies you and I know that you have a reason to be terrified. I know that he’s pissed because he can’t bribe me so that he can run things the way that he wants too and also because he can’t get to you. I’m scared for you and I want you to promise that you’ll be careful.”  
“I’ll be - I am careful, but maybe he’ll make a move soon and that will send him back to jail,” Jensen shrugged.  
“Yeah, he’ll go back to jail, but you’ll still be hurt.”  
Her words played in his head over and over as he walked to the bust stop that morning. He wasn’t sure why, he couldn’t get her warning out of his head. The more he thought about it the more he became aware of his surroundings. Mainly because he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.   
When he spotted the bus he stepped to the edge of the side walk wanting the safety of being inside, but as he stepped inside he felt the hairs on the back of his neck standup. He sat in the first available seat, thankful that the bus was here. He closed his eyes and threw his head back and blew out a sigh of relief and missed seeing Sterling as he stepped from the shadows.  
During the ride to the church, Jensen’s nerves did not calm down. He did not rest until he reached the church. When he went inside he was happy. The building was quiet, and halfway to his office he realized why.   
Since Sandy McCoy withdrew her son from the church’s daycare more than half of the other parents followed suit. The ones who remained were looking for alternate care and all cited Jensen as the reason.  
What did that mean for him? As he saw it, there was only one outcome and that would be Jensen being asked to leave, so he waited.  
Thirty minutes after Jensen arrived to work, Henry hurriedly walked into the building and went directly to pastor Heyerdahl’s office and closed the door.  
Jensen wasn’t sure how long the meeting would take, so he passed the time trying to clear up as much as he could. He would like to scream and shout about the unfairness of what was happening, but he couldn’t. The church took a chance with him and because of that chance they were losing revenue.  
His inbox was now empty once he caught everything up. The people at the church have been good to him and he didn’t want to leave them with a mess. Once he was finished he waited.  
But they never came.  
With nothing to occupy his mind, Jensen was on tether hooks as he waited for the knock on the door, and when it came, it wasn’t Henry or the pastor on the other side. It was Jared Fucking Padalecki.  
He cursed in church, Jensen the good southern boy that he was still waited for lightening to strike him down. He knew that was not going to happen because he no longer believed in a God but if there was one then he needed to explain his six years of hell because unlike Job, he gave up a long time ago.  
“What are you doing here?” he asked Jared in a voice that was calmer than he felt.  
“I just want to talk,” Jared answered from his position at the door.  
“Like the last time, huh. If I say no you gonna talk anyway?”

 

Jared’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. He looked at Jensen and really looked. He was so caught up in his feelings, that he hadn’t noticed what was going on with the man before him. Now he took in more than the beautiful green eyes and the sinful plump mouth.   
Jensen was still beautiful, but the eyes are now dull and lifeless, a mouth that was pulled into a tight line of displeasure and crinkles around his eyes that no one his age should have.  
Fuck.  
The conversation, or rather verbal assault from Gen and Danni made him realize that he misread the situation, but the feel of the man beneath him made him lose all reasoning.  
Clearing his throat, Jared began, “I’d like for us to start over and get to a place where I’m don’t have to apologize every other day for my stupidity.”  
“Same song, different day,” Jensen dismissed the apology. “What makes this time different?”  
“Look, Jen…”  
“Jensen,” he interrupted. “It’s Jensen - not Jen or Jenny. And before we continue, I think I know where you’re going with this, we’re never going to be anything more than friends, so please don’t get your hopes up.’  
“That’s fine - I can do friendship,” Jared promised.  
“Humph,” Jensen snorted. “That kiss told me something different. Despite what you think you know or what Chad has told you about me, I’m not looking for a relationship and if I’m being honest, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be.”

Jared wasn’t sure if the man was exaggerating or just testing him, but he was willing to take a chance. He would go through whatever trials that Jensen was going to put him through. If at the end they were only friends - well that would suck, but he’d deal with it.  
“This between us,” Jared pointed to the two of them, “has nothing to do with Chad or anyone else. I’ll admit that I want more than friendship, but I’ll take what you’re willing to give me.”  
“We’ll see,” Jensen said cautiously. “Um, let me get your number and we can talk later.”  
“Sure,” Jared agreed, and walked over to the desk and grabbed Jensen’s phone to add his name. His heart broke a little as he spotted the handful of names on Jensen’s contact list.  
“I know that it’s kind of early, but how about we grab a bite to eat,” Jared suggested hopefully.  
Lunch wasn’t being threatening was it? He didn’t think it was but he felt as though he’d done something wrong when he saw Jensen’s face close off.   
He had promised the other man that he wouldn’t do anything to warrant an apology, but it seemed that he was going to have to issue one even though he wasn’t sure what for.  
“I’ll go to lunch with you, but please don’t expect more than that lunch,” Jensen warned. “If you’re okay with that then I’ll take a free lunch because I may not be able to afford to buy my own soon.”  
“Why not,” Jared asked basking in the fact that Jensen hadn’t changed his mind and he hadn’t done anything he had to apologize for to care about the answer. “Henry and the Pastor love you.”  
“Perhaps,” Jensen half agreed, but if I drive away their business not so much,”  
“It’s a church,“ Jared laughed as they walked towards the door, “As long as people need hope or better yet, there are sinners they will have business.”  
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Jensen disagreed bitterly. “Neither hope or sin pays the bills, but snotty nosed hellions do. People don’t want to bring their kids to the church where there is a known pedophile working.”  
“The church will stand behind you,” Jared reasoned. “I saw several members pulling into the parking lot probably to go into the meeting with Henry and Heyerdahl. Trust me, your job is safe.”  
He could have not been more wrong. Instead of being greeted with the church board members, they were met by a small angry crowd and a camera crew.

 

Jensen had been feeling hopeful that morning as he and Jared walked towards the door that led to the parking lot, but that hope died in his chest as a light from a camera blinded him when he stepped outside.  
Once he regained his vision he was able to take in the scene before him; there was a group of people gathered and according to their signs, they wanted the church to fire him and be taken back to jail.   
Leading the pack was his mother and Juliana Ford.  
Swallowing the bile that had risen in his throat, Jensen sought Jared’s hand and turned to head back inside but was stopped by the two uniformed men who arrested him.  
What was happening? He had spent the morning worrying about whether he was going to keep his job when he should have been more concerned about his freedom. He couldn’t understand why he was being arrested, but when he tried to ask he was told to shut up.  
Once the handcuffs were on him, the police officers turned him towards the small crowd and the cameras gathered there. Once he looked out his steps faltered; not because of the crowd, but who was in it.   
His mother and Juliana Ford stood up front holding hands in some kind of weird solidarity, and off the side was Jim Beaver, grinning as though he had a secret.   
Perhaps he did because it was Jensen that was being arrested again. Why weren’t they arresting him? Colin had given the man up but here he was walking free while Jensen was being arrested.  
When he walked past him mother and Colin’s mom, he turned to them and said, “Help me, you know the truth, that I didn’t do this to Colin.”  
Before the officers could drag him forward, Juliana slapped him and the cameras caught it all.  
Once she slapped him, and he was dazed, the police decided to tell home why he was being arrested “Jensen Ackles, you’re being arrested for the murder of Charlie Bullock,” the taller of the two told him.  
Oh God no, this could not be happening again, as their words sank in, Jensen felt his knees give away, and the only reason he remained standing was because the two men were holding him up.  
“You’ve got the wrong guy,” Jensen pleaded.

The police officers smirked as the woman beat Jensen as he sat in the old wooden chair with his hands cuffed behind his back.  
“You monster,” Alona screamed as she continued to rain blows on Jensen’s head and shoulders. “Why did you hurt him?” He was just a little boy with his entire life ahead of him until he crossed paths with you. Sandy warned me, told me to take him out, but I didn’t listen. Now he’s dead.”  
Jensen wanted to deny that he had anything to do with her child’s death, but because the vengeful police had told her otherwise nothing he said was going to convince her otherwise, and besides he was also too busy to trying to dodge her blows.   
“What the hell!” Jeff exclaimed as he entered the small police station. “You’re just going to stand there and let her attack him?”  
“Why not?” the tall officer asked. “he deserves it for what he did to that little boy. We have matching DNA from the Ford boy, and we know who was tried and convicted for that. Just because he redirected his passions while he was locked up doesn’t mean that his desires have changed.”  
“You know that’s not true,” Jeff shouted as he pulled the blond woman away from his defenseless client. “You know that Jensen was freed because Sheppard and Roché withheld evidence and lied. You knew that but you called Nancy fucking Grace and her crew and paraded him in front of the cameras so that he would be convicted in the court of public opinion.”  
“Sheppard and Roché were - are good cops and we’re not going to stand by while that faggot goes free; besides if he didn’t do it then he knows which one of his perverted friends did. If he doesn’t give him up then we’ll have one more pervert off the streets.”  
While Jeff had been talking to the officers, Alona Tal had been fighting to get back at Jensen, but when the police admitted to knowing that Jensen was innocent, she went still.  
Her beautiful face was interesting to watch as the hurt was replaced with and anger that he wished his mother felt for him.  
“Oh, God - I - you…”she stuttered. “You knew. When you called me you knew that he wasn’t the one who hurt my son, but you let me believe that I would at least go to bed tonight knowing that the person who hurt him was off the streets. But I don’t have that luxury do I?”  
“Yes, we knew,” the officer admitted, “but he knows who did this and we can get the information we need from him.”  
“Trust us,” the other officer pleaded. “He’ll break and we’ll get our answers.  
“Trust you,” Alona shrieked. “Why would I trust you when you lied, to get me down here, let me walk through that field of paparazzi vultures and none of it was true? This isn’t even about my son.”   
“He knows who did this,” officer exclaimed. “He can lead us to the culprit.”  
Turning to look at Jensen, Alona shook her head, “No he can’t. Even I can see that he doesn’t know who did this. This isn’t about him or my kid. You’re trying to get your crooked officers reinstated and using us to do so.”  
The thin line of the blonde officer’s mouth told Jensen that the man was angry, but he was not willing to anger her.  
“I’m so sorry Jensen,” she told him. “I’m so fucking sorry, and I hope that your attorney can get you out of this mess.”  
She started to walk out of the station when she turned to the officers who were both trying to reign in their anger.   
“You know what? I don’t care that your cronies got caught, I really don’t. What I care about is the fact that the bastard that hurt my child is out there and has been for some time. If Sheppard and Roché had done their jobs, then my child would still be alive. Find him.”  
Jensen watched as his mother moved forward to the grieving mother and hugged her and he felt his chest fill with pride and hope. But then she spoke.  
“I’m sorry you lost your child, I understand the loss,” she sniffed. “I lost mine to a sick lifestyle. I want to protect mothers like you, so that’s why I called the cameras, to help us. Jensen is gay and he has the potential to hurt other children, let the police do their job.”  
“Being gay isn’t a crime and it doesn’t define who he is anymore that being straight defines us. The police took an innocent child and destroyed his life and you’re okay with that because he’s gay. I’m not worried about him, I’m worried about the man who rapes and kills children while the police stand around holding their dicks.”  
“You don’t know that he won’t…” Donna started.  
“Mom!” Jensen protested.  
“Mom?” she asked incredulously as she looked between Donna and Jensen. “You’re his mother and you’re throwing him to the wolves because he’s gay? Lady, my son is lying cold on a slab in the morgue and you have yours right here in front of you and you act as though he doesn’t exist. Trust me’ I’d rather have him bent over for another man than dead.”  
Alona shook her head and made her way out the door before stopping again. “If you don’t let him go and tell the truth, I will.”  
As she closed the door behind her, the officer moved to none to gently remove the cuff from Jensen. As he uncuffed the young man, he whispered, “Don’t get too happy, boy. We’ve got your mom and Nancy Grace on our side.”  
“Perhaps,” Jensen agreed as he rubbed his wrists where the cuffs had bit into his skin, “but I have evidence and the truth on mine.”  
He wanted to say something to his mother, to reach the woman who had nurtured him from birth, but a glance into the cold green orbs that were so like his own, told him that there was nothing he could say. So he walked towards the door.  
“Wait Jensen,” Jeff called to him. “It seems that the press is waiting outside for you. To create a diversion, some of the interns are gonna come and walk out with us.”  
“What for?” Jensen asked nodding towards the police, “I’m sure our good friends will tell them where to find me.”  
“They will, but we’ll have police protecting you.”  
“Like hell we will!” the tall cop, choked out, “we have better things to do than to protect some fudge packer.”  
“I figured that you would want to deny him protection, so we had real police to come in from the state as well as a couple of Texas Rangers.” Jeff shrugged.  
Jensen watched as the cop's face fell at that news. The dick probably wanted to become a Ranger, and judging from the close cropped haircut he had, completed his military stint that was part of the qualifications, he was now worried how this was going to affect his chances.  
The diversion worked perfectly; the interns all helped divert the reporters and the mobs attention by driving away and once they were all gone, then Jensen was taken out of the police station.  
The day had been rough, there was no denying that and as he drove back to the halfway house (Jensen refused to call it home) he thought about what had transpired.  
When he’d visited his parents’ home earlier he thought that he’d come to grips with his mother’s attitude, but inside that tiny building he’d learned that she had a hatred for him that he couldn’t begin to understand. There was a niggling thought in the back of his mind that she might have been responsible for his being convicted in the first place but he had no proof of that.  
After the day he’d had that was too much to think about right now. On the drive back, Jensen and Jeff made plans concerning the media and finalized several appearances, because it seemed that his mother and Juliana Ford had made appearances earlier on Nancy Grace and that was why all of a sudden the church was mobbed.  
Jensen tried to focus on what Jeff was getting him to agree to but his cell kept buzzing and when he looked at the device, saw several - twenty-five - missed calls from Jared and a couple from Gen and Danneel. He was shocked when he saw his father and brother’s names listed on the caller ID.   
He didn’t even know that Josh and his dad had his number.   
When the car stopped in front of the old house, just as Jeff had said there were state police parked along the streets blocking anyone from getting inside. They met the car at the curb and escorted Jensen safely to the door fighting the paparazzi who were fighting one another to get the best photo of Jensen.  
Once inside he knew that it was going to be impossible to go to his room without talking to Loretta. As he searched for her in the room full of men, she was nowhere to be found but he was quickly accosted by Mike.  
Jensen looked at the bald man and smiled. His friend was dressed in a very expensive suit that had obviously been a gift from the elusive Tom. Because of his felony conviction, Mike couldn’t practice law, but he could work as a paralegal, and Tom pulled some strings and got his lover a position in his firm.  
“What the fuck, man?” Mike when the door closed behind Jensen. “Someone has a hard on to get you convicted. Nothing is ever simple with you is it?”  
“Dude where’s the fun in that?” Jensen mocked. “If I kept it simple then I would be in my own place going to work and keeping my head down.”  
“The only time you keep your head down is where you’re giving a blow job,” Chad mocked.   
“Don’t be so hard on the boy,” Sterling interjected. “He gives good blow jobs.”  
Mike was ready to attack at Sterling’s words, but Jensen took stock of the room and noticed that David and Ty were not there and in their place were two new guys that Jensen didn’t recognize, but he was sure that if a scuffle occurred then it would be five against two and he didn’t like those odds.  
Instead of rising to the bait, Jensen turned to Mike and asked about how the Rangers were doing and before going into the finer points of the changes the team had made in the outfield and he was grateful that Mike caught on.  
Even though he didn’t look at the others Jensen could feel the tension rise in the room and thought that the only reason that there hadn’t been an altercation was because of the presence of the state police outside.  
As he sat there with Mike Jensen felt the day catching up with him and he wanted to go to sleep but he did not feel comfortable leaving Mike alone with the others, and as they ran out of conversation, Loretta walked inside along with Aldis Hodge, the parole officer.  
“Mr. Brown,” Hodge addressed the older man, “since you want to be a television star, I needed to make sure that you were here for lockdown.”   
“Just doing my civic duty,” he smiled innocently.  
Jensen cringed as Brown smiled at the parole officer, the man was up to something, he’d seen that look one too many times to trust anything he said. The great thing was that neither Loretta nor Hodge trusted him either.  
“Do you even know what that means? Get your ass into the office so we can talk.”  
“Jensen are you okay?” Loretta asked once the door to the office closed. “I saw your mom, Juliana and Sterling on Nancy Grace. I always liked that show, but now I wonder if she or her staff take the time to check their facts.”  
“I’m sure they have too if they have their information on official Bennettesville letterhead. I guess that’s the proof she needs, but were going to appear on there tomorrow and have our say.”  
“You know that there are folks who won’t believe you right?” Loretta asked gently.  
“My mother doesn’t believe me, so nothing else surprises me.”  
She hugged him and advised, “You’ve had a rough day, and it’s gonna be worse before it gets better, so go get some rest. And by rest I don’t mean sitting in that chair all night - so things will look better in the morning.”  
He gave her a surprised look when she mentioned his chair.  
“I don’t miss much, Jensen,” she smiled and pushed him towards the door.  
For the first time tonight he had a genuine smile on his face when he entered his room. Once the door was closed, and the light turned on Jensen’s hard earned smile was gone because he was pretty sure that Loretta didn’t know that his chair was now a pile of kindling.


	9. Chapter 9

If Jensen thought that Sterling’s entry into his room before made him feel violated, this was much worse. When the rest of the world around him was going mad, Jensen could come here and stare at the garden that he had begun to cultivate.   
He could not see in the dark so he ran out the door past the laughter to his garden, and he almost wept in relief that the one good thing that he had contributed to the world was still intact.   
As he turned to go back inside he could hear movement behind him and at first he thought that it was the police, but it was Sterling Brown.

“Nowhere to run, Jenny,” Sterling mocked him “you think that you can avoid me and hide behind that bitch’s skirt, well think again.”  
He could do this, take another beating. He survived the last one, and even though he lost, it felt good that he stood up to his tormentor and would this time too. There were no witnesses this time, false or otherwise. No matter how bad this ended for him Sterling would be back in prison.  
The fight before was just to prove a point that he could make Jensen bend to his will any time he wanted, but as the other man walked up to him he knew that this was different. Tonight was going to be about total domination without the help of guards and cells and he hoped that he could survive what was about to happen.  
Jensen watched as all of his nightmares came true as Sterling unbuckled his pants and pulled his cock out, “You wanna keep the pretty flowers, then you have to earn them sweetheart. You’ve fallen behind on your duties; I mean why I should use my hand when you have that talented mouth and the sweetest pussy I have ever fucked sleeping a few feet away from me?”  
As Jensen looked past Sterling he was hoping, praying even, that the others would have followed their leader, but they did not nor did the police guarding him. Even if they lied, the presence and the sound of a group would be noticed and heard by the police, stopping Sterling before anything could happen.  
When he realized that no one was coming, Jensen opened his mouth to yell, but was immediately silenced with a backhand across his mouth turning the scream into a whimper of pain.   
Before when he and Sterling fought, part of the reason he didn’t run was because of the location. Even before all of the press the local police and P.O’s were always driving by, but here there would be no help. So he needed to run. He judged the distance between his position and the gate and knew that he wouldn’t make it, but he tried anyway.  
Factoring in the time it would take Sterling to make himself decent, Jensen thought that he could make it to the gate, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. He had barely passed the older man when he felt a punch.  
The first punch from Sterling’s fist dazed him and when he was trying to focus, a second fist connected with Jensen’s opposite jaw and that seemed bringing things back into focus. Even though he hadn’t been in a fight one on one since he was a teen, Jensen still remembered the basics.   
His first strike barely grazed the other man who was laughing at him as he bounced around, easily avoiding Jensen’s flailing hands. But the next one landed, but it only served to make his opponent angrier.  
It was the one punch to his solar plexus that ended it and made him fall to his knees before his tormentor.  
He closed his eyes and thought about Jared, maybe he could pretend, but he didn’t want to foul whatever it was that was between him and the taller man, but he didn’t want to have this memory either, so when Sterling slid his cock past Jensen’s lips, Jensen swallowed him until he hit the back of his throat and he bit down.  
Sterling’s screams of pain are what finally drew the police’s attention.  
After spitting out the appendage, Jensen gave them a bloody smile and asked, “What took you so long?”

 

Jared was furious.   
He had been alternating between calling Jensen and Jeff’s phone but neither of them thought that he was important enough to answer his calls. He wasn’t sure about Jensen but he knew that the lawyer was getting them because he watched as he answered calls from others on the evening news.  
All he wanted was to know how Jensen was doing; he wanted the real version, not the washed down one they kept showing as teasers.   
He checked his watch and realized that the local news would be on in a few minutes so he went to grab a beer and when he took his first sip, his phone rang. The caller ID told him that it was his dad.   
Jared thought about not answering it but knowing his dad, the man would round up Jared’s older brother Jeff and show up at his door, so he answered.  
“Son what the hell have you gotten yourself involved in?” Dr. Gerald Padalecki shouted over the line. “It’s bad enough what that boy did to the child six years ago, but what he did to that man because he talked to Nancy Grace is downright scary.”  
“What are you talking about dad, Jensen wouldn’t hurt a soul.”  
“Save your judgement until you watch CNN,” his father said, clearly disbelieving his younger son. “Trust me you won’t see this shit on the local news.”

Quickly following his father’s instructions, Jared ran back to the family room and searched until he found the story his father was talking about. It started with a snippet of Sterling Brown, Donna Ackles and Juliana Ford giving their opinion of Jensen and all of their stories ran along the same vein - Jensen Ackles was a sexual deviant and needed to be stopped, but they mostly focused on Sterling.  
The warning the newscasters gave before showing the next clip made Jared very nervous. At first it was Jensen running around his flower garden checking the plants when Sterling came into view closing the gate behind him.  
Once the gate was closed the videographers somehow managed to get a camera into the yard, catching Sterling’s threats, but more importantly his first swing at the younger man.  
In the end though, even though he didn’t know it, Jared was debating whether the fact that Jensen bit off the other man’s dick, when he spit it out and ground it under his heel.  
Even after watching the replay several times Jared stared at the TV screen in disbelief. Gone was the shy and scared young man he had come to know and in his place was a scary maniacal man that he did not recognize.   
As he watched Jensen being led away in handcuffs he wondered what happened. Had the pressure of everything caused him to snap?   
Sterling Brown was the man’s name whose dick was seen being dismembered by millions, and Jared vaguely remembered hearing that name but he’s not sure if it was from Jensen or Chad because he tended to zone out on the prison stories if he could. It was hard thinking of either of them being locked up and now he wished he had paid more attention to whomever was discussing the man. Either way it couldn’t have been good.  
“Jared!” his dad called out, “Son are you still there?”  
“Yeah, dad, “I’m still here.”  
As the video was played yet again Jared turned the TV off and sad, “Hey dad - I might need a favor and it’s kind of a big favor.”  
After listening to his son, Gerald sighed and asked, “Son, are you sure that this kid is worth the trouble you’re about to go through for him? Judging by the date that he was released, you just met him. “Your feelings can’t be that deep to out yourself for him.”  
“Yes - wait you know? Dad.” He asked as he tried to get his thoughts together. “You know that I’m… that I like men?”  
Gerald gave another sigh, “Of course I know. I watched you grow from a boy to a man and you never once took advantage of all of those cute little girls throwing themselves at you. Most of the time I don’t think that you even noticed them.”  
“I’m sorry, dad,” was all Jared could think of to say in response.  
“For what? You’ve grown into a man that any parent would be proud of, it’s just the town of Bennettesville is slow to change and I don’t think that you’re going to find many people here that accepting.”  
Jared hadn’t really thought of that, but it was too late to do anything about it now.  
His plans were based on if Jensen was going to be freed and if Jensen trusted him. Once he ended the call with his father, Jared went to the internet to see if there had been any updates and all he could find was interviews with Donna Ackles and a mean spirited meme.

 

“What the hell were you thinking, Jensen?” Jeff shouted at the young man as they sat in the parking lot of the Bennettesville police station where his client had been released on his own recognizance.  
“I was thinking that I had a dick that I didn’t want shoved down my throat and I wanted it gone!” He gave Jeff as an explanation accompanied with a full bodied shiver.  
“What if that camera hadn’t been there Jensen? It would have been your word against his and in this little town where as far as everyone is concerned you have a major strike against you, this won’t help.”  
“Jeff, I’m not sure if I ever thanked you for all you’ve done - that you are doing for me and I understand why you’re upset. But you weren’t there for any of the things that Sterling did to me. He defiled me the moment I stepped into that prison and every day until I left in ways that you can’t even fathom. There’s not enough water in the world to make me feel clean again.”  
“Jensen…”  
“Since I have been free,” Jensen continued, “I didn’t have much; just a room and a small little garden to give me peace. They were safe places for me and he defiled them too. I didn’t intend… My intention was to bite down hard enough to make him let go, but I guess years of pent up anger came out in that one bite.”  
Both men sat in silence for a few minutes to let last night’s actions sink in.   
“So what happens next Jeff,” Jensen asked quietly.  
“Well Nancy Grace is salivating because of previous arrangements she gets the first crack at you. She’s trying to move the interview up to today and we’re not ready.”  
“I hate her Jeff.” Jensen stated. “I spend a lot of nights wondering, would I have been convicted if it weren’t for her show, and now I get to sit through letting her grill me because she still doesn’t believe me.”  
“I know kiddo,” Jeff murmured as he looked at his constantly buzzing telephone before he grinned and showed Jensen the text that he’d just received, “maybe we have another solution.”  
Anderson Cooper wanted to talk and Jensen wanted to talk to him, but he needed sleep before he could do that, so instead of taking Jensen back to the halfway house Jeff took him somewhere the paparazzi couldn’t follow; his own gated home.  
Jeff’s wife was friendly - well as friendly as one could be when her husband brought home a cock severing pedophile. He knew that Jeff kept her abreast of the situation and that Jensen was innocent, but he couldn’t help but notice how she kept their small son close to her at all times.  
He was grateful when she showed him to the guestroom after preparing an omelet for him and Jeff. Once he was alone he looked the comfortable looking bed, but he settled for the overstuffed chair by the window and pulled his phone from his pocket.  
He looked at his phone that he’d felt buzzing since he got in the car with Jeff and saw several missed calls from Gen, Danni and mostly from Chris and one from Jared, dreading making these calls, he touched his finger to the screen and dialed.  
Jared answered on the first ring.  
“Jensen where are you? Please tell me that you’re alright,” the young man begged.  
“I’m as right as I can be in this situation,” Jensen assured him.  
“What happened? When I last talked to Jeff you were okay, and he was taking you back to the house. Please help me understand what - why.”  
“It’s simple really, Jared.” Jensen stated as though he was discussing the weather. “I was in prison for years. Six long years and each and every one of those days I was raped.”  
“Jeez, Jensen,” Jared exclaimed.   
“Yeah,” Jensen agreed before continuing, “I was raped either by Sterling Brown or someone who paid him for the privilege. I’m told the going rate was four cartons of cigarettes or money, usually $25 in his commissary account.”  
When Jared remained silent Jensen gnashed his teeth and asked, “Jared, are you still with me?”  
After hearing the man gag, Jensen was relieved when he answered, “Yeah, I’m still here.”  
“You know that you don’t have to go along with this ride, Jared,” he whispered before echoing words the young man had heard earlier. “You don’t have much invested here, I understand if you want to walk away and forget that you ever knew me.”  
“It’s too late for that Jen.”  
Jensen sat there stunned as Jared’s words walked over him, loving the way they sounded in his ears. Someone loved - or at least liked - him. Him, with all of the shit going on in his life and the baggage that came with his past, had someone that cared.  
He only had a handful of friends, Chris, Danni, Gen, Mike and maybe Tom, and they meant the world to him but Jared was different.  
He made Jensen think that things in his life could be normal and his chest hurt with the hope that was building there from the thought. For once pain made him smile.  
As he marveled in the feelings Jared started rambling, “So I talked to my dad, and as long as you’re okay with it he’s okay with it, so what do you say?”   
“Say to what?” Jensen asked trying to determine if he missed something. As he waited for Jared’s response, Jensen’s heart beat so loudly that he was sure the other man could hear it through the phone.  
“What are you asking, Jay?” He repeated, but this time with more confidence, because coming from Jared he was sure that it wouldn’t be anything bad.  
“Move in with me.”  
This time it was Jensen who went silent. He and Jared were beginning something after so many false starts, but moving in together was skipping several steps. Moving in meant that Jared wanted something that Jensen was simply unable to give right now, and if he was being honest, ever.  
“Please say something,” Jared begged.  
“Jared. I - can’t…”  
“If you’re worried about sex, then don’t, the offer is not contingent on that. I won’t deny that I want you. God knows that I do, but it’s not a deal breaker. I just want to know that you’re safe.”  
“Are you sure?” Jensen asked unable to believe that he was considering taking Jared up on the offer.  
“The idea is to keep you safe. I live in a place on my parent’s property. It was the house that my great-granddad built for his wife when they first married. Once the main house was built, it’s been used by ranch hands and used for storage until I restored it and moved in. The best thing about it that it is off the beaten path and reporters cannot get to you.”  
Jensen was quiet as he thought about the offer; he would miss Loretta and Mike, but on the other hand he would have Jared.  
“You should see my great grandma’s yellow roses,” Jared said softly.  
“Yes,” Jensen agreed hoping that he hasn’t made the biggest mistake of his life.


	10. Chapter 10

The interview was being held in the old armory that had been converted into a rec center with basketball courts and a track. It was something that was familiar to Jensen but he was nervous, or rather the cameras made him nervous. So did Anderson Cooper. The man was gorgeous and had more confidence in his pinky than Jensen did in his entire body and now he was going to have to discuss what Sterling did to him.  
He knew that he should not be in this position had he not let his anger overtake him, but what’s done is done. Now Sterling was going to be someone’s bitch and he felt good that he was the one to put a stop to the man’s reign of terror.  
At first the interview was going well, while the questions weren’t softball, they neither were easy either, but with Jeff sitting next to him and Jared somewhere in the building, he could handle it.  
“Now Jensen we’ve all seen your mother on television stating that you got what you deserve because of your sexual orientation and you’ve expressed your hurt about that…”  
He should have known that the host’s hesitation wasn’t going to be good, but fool that he was, thought that he was prepared until the question was completed.  
“…but what was your reaction when you discovered that your mother was not only helping the police gain evidence on you since you’ve been released, but was the reason that you were jailed in the first place?”  
He gasp from his left told him that Jeff was not aware of that fact either, but from all of the work he’d put in to contacting Jensen’s family and working to free him, this was no surprise that Jeff was unaware of this.  
“No. She wouldn’t… you’re lying!” Jensen barked.  
“She’s waiting in the next room, why don’t you ask her,” Anderson said with what Jensen was sure to be false concern.  
There was no getting around facing her again, but this was different, all of the anger that he’d had for everyone else could be placed at the feet of his mother. With tears coursing down his cheeks he followed Anderson, Jeff and the cameraman to the next room to face his mother.  
When they entered the room, there was pandemonium. He had only expected his mom, but his dad and Josh were there along with Juliana Ford and all of them were yelling at Donna.  
The reporter didn’t stop the ruckus because it was good television, but Jeff, peacemaker that he was, made an attempt. The yelling and fast flying accusations stopped flying when the others noticed that Jensen was in the room.  
It was Donna who spoke first.  
“Look at the little pansy crying. I would have thought that all of that time in jail would have made you harder than that but I guess not,” she sneered.  
“Mom, please…” he begged.  
“I am not your mom. I don’t have a faggot son…”  
“Don’t you call him that,” Alan defended his son, “It’s not Jensen that’s no longer a part of this family, it’s you Donna.”  
“It didn’t bother you when Josh was calling him that in court, did it? Big Texas man having a faggot for a son,” she taunted. “Back then you just wanted it all to go away, didn’t want the stench of what he was on you, well I made it go away.”  
Alan’s deep red blush told Jensen that part of what she said was true, that his father had been embarrassed, but his defense told Jensen that embarrassment over his sexual orientation was something his dad could get over and there was a possibility of salvaging their relationship.  
With the help of security, Anderson Cooper finally stepped in and got the room under control and seated everyone.  
When everyone was seated Jensen took a look at his surroundings, the rec center that he and his friends had spent the summers and some weekends playing pick-up games had undergone a drastic change.  
There were lots of chairs and a small stage, and the room was filled to capacity. It reminded Jensen of the town hall meeting his parents dragged him to when he was fifteen when the city workers wanted a raise. His dad was on the city council and he had to mediate and thought that it would be good for Jensen to see how democracy worked.  
He should have paid more attention to the lesson because the men in power won and as punishment, the worker bees had their hours increased for an increase so small that it was taxed away.  
Hopefully he will fare better than the worker bees.  
As they took their seats on the stage Jensen located Jared in the crowd, his long hair and height made him easy to spot in the crowd. Once he spotted Jared he felt some of the nerves ease away and he began to relax a little as he joined Jeff and all of the other players in this farce on stage.  
“Donna,” Anderson addressed the angry woman who was shooting daggers at her son and her husband. “I have to ask; want to understand why it was more preferable for you to see your son locked away giving the true perpetrator free reign to continue to abuse innocent kids?”  
Like everyone else in the room, Jensen waited for Donna’s answer, but from the sullen look on her face, he thought that she was going to be defiant and refuse to answer, but then her suddenly soft voice silenced the room.  
“He wasn’t supposed to go to jail, they were just supposed to scare him.”  
“Well, I think you succeeded,” Alan snarked. “You tore our family apart. Dad died because he thought that that boy molested a kid.”  
“All he had to do was say that he wasn’t gay!” She shouted before pointing at Jensen, “The Amell kid was smart, he denied liking boys and left, but not you. You had to let everyone know that you liked boys, so you left them no choice but to prosecute the degenerate they had in custody.”  
“They knew who the real perpetrator was but yet they still prosecuted an innocent kid while you - his mother - stood by and let it happen?”  
“Yes they knew, we all knew that it was Jim Beaver, even Colin knew who it was that attacked him and he said nothing,” she accused.  
If she was going to say something else Donna didn’t get a chance because her words were cut off by a vicious slap from Juliana Ford. “Don’t you dare! All this time you knew who did this to my son and you let that asshole go free to hurt others? You let your own child suffer and on top of that, the Tal kid’s death is on your hands. What kind of monster are you?”  
“Jensen feels that way as well, he thinks that Colin is just as responsible for him being locked away too,” she deflected the accusations by passing them on to her child.  
“Jensen, please tell her that that’s not true,” Juliana turned to him, “Colin was the victim.”  
He could lie and tell the good people in the community what they wanted to hear, but he wasn’t so sure that he would still be accepted, because even if he didn’t rape Colin, he was still queer in the small Texas town of Bennettesville.  
“Jensen, he was just a kid, he’s just a kid now and he’s been through so much, he doesn’t need this,” Juliana defended her son.  
“She’s right Jensen, let us not forget the victim, and as his mother stated he was just a kid none of this is his fault,” Anderson agreed, “he’s still a kid, so don’t heap anymore problems on the young man’s head.”  
With a shaking voice Jensen addressed Anderson and Juliana; “So was I! Y’all have seen me as this monster for so long that you forgot that I was sixteen years old when I was arrested. Colin may have been a kid, but while I was being brutalized he was getting help and he’s gotten better, and I got raped by Sterling Brown, so yeah I partly blame him.”  
Loud gasps were soon replaced by the bussing of conversations from the audience, but they were shocked into silence when a teenager walked from the shadows to the stage.  
“I’m so sorry Jensen - so goddamned sorry,’ Colin Ford cried. “Jim Beaver apologized but he kept coming and about a week after you went to jail he showed me a picture of you and I just. Your mom told me she’d keep me safe as long as I didn’t tell anyone, so I didn’t.”  
“Why mo-Donna,” Jensen echoed the angry woman’s sentiment, “why did you let them send me to jail? I would have rather you had thrown me on the streets than what you did to me. You gave me hands down the worst coming out story ever.”  
“Jensen…” Donna said in a voice full of contrition.  
“That wasn’t bad enough but then you took Colin into our home and let him date McKenzie and then you made him be silent about who hurt him?”  
By this time Anderson was letting the scene play out, if the players needed prodding then he would interject with a statement or comment.  
“I really do hate the fact that you were gay, I tried to be like the rest of the family and say hey, that’s okay, but it wasn’t. Not to me. I saw this as a chance to get to retract your announcement, because at that time you’d only ever told family. When I realized that you were actually going to be convicted, I couldn’t stop them. When I threatened to give up Jim Beaver, they played recordings of our conversations like this was some made for TV movie.”  
“You still could have done the right thing, mom,” Josh admonished from his seat in the audience.  
“They were going to hurt Mack, and I already sacrificed one of my kids.”  
“Why didn’t they just arrest Beaver and then there wouldn’t have been this mess?” Anderson asked.  
“Because Jim had something he was holding over their heads,” she shook her head, “I believe that it had something to do with selling drugs at the high school, so they weren’t going to touch him. The problem was they needed to arrest someone and I unknowingly handed them Jensen.”  
“I just received a text from the state police, and Jim Beaver has just been arrested and Sheppard and Roché will be shortly,” Jeff announced and sent the room into a fury of conversations.  
Jensen let all of the craziness swirl around him as he went to find Jared in the crowd. By the time he had reached the big man, Gen and Danni were standing beside him.  
“Things are looking good for you now, huh?” Gen asked.  
“Sweetie I’m so happy for you, this shit is finally over,” Danni gushed as she reached out to hug him.  
He would like to believe that but he knew that a lot of things were just beginning. There were still some more shows to make appearances on and he decided that he wanted compensation. He couldn’t live off Jared and there was no way that he was able to work, so he would do as Jeff had originally asked him to do and sue the state.  
The ride back to the halfway house was silent, Jensen was not sure he wanted to go back there, so he decided to go home with Jared.  
There was a sadness that he was not going to get to say good-bye to Loretta and Mike, but if he didn’t have to then he had no plans to go back the place where there were nothing but bad memories and reporters waiting for him. Jeff arranged to get his meager belongings, and he would meet with Loretta later.  
Besides, Loretta and Mike were friends, they had been the first two names programmed into his phone.  
As they drove he could see the lights of the cars following them, and panic arose inside him, the reporters were following them, what would happened when they reached Jared’s home. He didn’t want to place him in the way of those vultures just because he was giving him shelter.  
After a forty-five minute drive Jared slowed down when he came to a large gate. When he reached the entrance he entered a code and the heavy gate opened leaving the cars tailing them on the outside. They continued driving once they were inside the gate and passed a huge house and Jensen could swear he heard the neighing of horses so he looked around for the source. It was too dark for him to see anything so he settled back into his seat.  
Ten minutes later they stopped in front of smaller house. The front porch light was on and Jensen smiled.  
“What was that smile for?” Jared asked as he put the large truck into park.  
“Nothing, it’s stupid really, I just thought about the motel six ad,” Jensen told him.  
“Man I must really need to do some more work if my home reminds you of a cheap hotel.”  
“No - you know the ad; we’ll leave the light on for you. I told you it was stupid.”  
“It’s not stupid,” Jared replied, “but it is nice to see you smile and make jokes. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you do that.”  
Jensen ducked his head and blushed at the compliment, but he jumped back when Jared reached out and lifted his chin up.  
“Let’s go inside,” Jared suggested as he ignored Jensen’s reaction.  
Jensen followed the tall man inside where he was given a quick tour. The place was gorgeous, gleaming wood and earth tone paint and decorations made the place feel warm and welcome.  
As they walked down the hall, it was the moment of truth, did Jared really mean what he said? That he wouldn’t pressure him.  
The first door was to Jared’s bedroom and Jared walked inside leaving Jensen trembling with disappointment in the hallway.  
“It’s okay, Jensen, I just want to get you something to sleep in before I show you to your room.”  
Jensen nodded his head but he didn’t step inside the room. When Jared gave him a pair of cotton sleep pants and a t-shirt, Jensen lowered his head and mumbled, “Thank you.”  
When Jensen glanced up, Jared looked as though he was going to say something but changed his mind and walks the few feet to the next door. If he was happy with what he had at the halfway house this was his idea of heaven.  
There was a huge king-sized bed that dominated the room with equally larger pieces of furniture to accompany it, but the feature that caught Jensen’s eye were the double French doors that led outside to what looked to be a garden.  
He could smell the flowers from the doorway, and was itching to see what was on the other side of those doors, so he waited for Jared to go back to is room so that he could go outside and explore what he could in the dark.  
Jared must have known what he was thinking because he walked past him and threw open the doors and walked outside.  
“C’mon, Jen,” Jared cocked his head for him to follow.  
Once outside he was lost. There were the beautiful yellow roses that Jared had tempted him with, and at first he thought that was the wonderful smell, but a glance to the left told him that it was the stargazer lilies that were putting out that sweet scent.  
He was so lost in exploring the garden that he hadn’t noticed that Jared had left until he pressed a beer in his hand.  
Embarrassed by his enthusiasm, Jensen took the beer and moved away from Jared and sat in one of the chairs on the patio.  
“So tonight,” Jared started.  
“No!” Jensen stopped him. “I know that we have to talk, and I’m not trying to get out of it, but please don’t ruin the first peace I’ve found by talking about my fucked up life.”  
Jared nodded and pointed to the sky, “Bet you can’t point out a constellation and don’t you dare say the big or the little dipper,” he mocked.  
Jensen blushed because that’s exactly what he was going to do because they were the only ones he knew. Jared smiled and pointed out several of them to the blushing man as he explained that his grandfather helped him learn.  
After the lesson in stargazing the pair fell quiet and eventually Jared had to go to sleep. The tradeoff for living here was that he had to get up before dawn to get to his jobsite and he was now getting up earlier because he had to pick up Chad along the way.  
Because he no longer had a job to report to, Jensen stayed outside in the garden. He knew that there was a comfortable king-sized bed waiting inside for him, but he sat back in his chair and searched for the stars that Jared had just shown him.

 

Early the next morning when Jared left for work Jensen had finally drifted off to sleep. When he awoke in the garden, at first he thought that he was dreaming, but then he remembered. He was at Jared’s.  
It was the heat of the sun that woke him, he felt rested but he’s knows that he hadn’t been asleep long because he remembered the first tendrils of light when he felt his eyes growing heavy.  
His clothes were still at the halfway house so he would have to put on the same ones he had on the day before, but he’s spent days lying in his own filth, so this would not be a hardship.  
Stretching, Jensen stood up and made his way back into the house and paused to look at the huge king-sized bed and had a flash of him and Jared lying on it.  
Where did that thought come from?  
He hadn’t had sexual thoughts since he first noticed Stephen Amell, but his mind was suddenly thinking about the hulking giant of a man who had terrified him outside of the church, to the gentle one who shared his grandmother's rose garden and his grandfather's knowledge of the constellations and found that his body along with his mind was thinking about Jared in an entirely new light.  
Once the thought of him and Jared in that big bed creeped into his mind, they would not leave. As he soaped his body under the warm spray, he felt his cock thickening and stole his hand down to touch himself.  
Instinctively he looked around to make sure that he was alone, before he gently began to stroke himself, and god it felt so good. He was rusty at self-pleasure and it took him a while to remember what he liked, it was like riding a bike but it felt so much better.  
He stroked the length of his cock until he came to the head where he swiped the thumb over the sensitive head. He knew that there was precome but he couldn’t feel it because of the soap and water. When his finger caught under the head of the mushroom head, the bundle of nerves were so sensitive that his knees buckled and he had to place one hand on the wall in front of him to keep from falling.  
How embarrassing would that be to be found hurt because he couldn’t handle jerking off?  
Jensen threw his head back and let himself get lost in the feelings taking over his body, and then he felt it. His hole it fluttered as though he wanted it filled and the thought of Jared being the one filling him made him spill his seed over his hand.  
After his shower Jensen scrubbed the shower to rid it of any evidence of what he had done there. It was bad enough that Jared knew what happened to him in prison, he didn’t need the man to find evidence of it.  
After the shower Jensen walked around the property, he knew that there were more than the garden that he was so enamored with, and didn’t he hear horses last night? He wanted to see them because it had been so long since he had ridden.  
His dad used to keep a horse stabled locally for him and Josh, he wondered if Josh still rode and what had happened to his horse, if their house was any indication, his mom probably sold the gelding.  
He found the paddock easily enough and watched the magnificent animals as they ate.  
“You must be Jensen,” an amused voice from behind him said.  
“Guilty,” Jensen answered as he turned to face the owner of said voice.  
Putting his hand over his eyes to block the sun, Jensen took in an older version of Jared and knew immediately that this must be Jared’s dad.  
“Hi, I’m Gerald Padalecki,” the man confirmed as he held his hand out to Jensen.  
“Jensen Ackles,” he answered as though the man didn’t already know.  
Jensen bristled at the man’s words. He knew that he wasn’t what Gerald Padalecki wanted his son to bring home. It was most likely bad enough that his son was gay, but to bring someone like Jensen home was more than likely more than he could handle.  
“I know. Jared was supposed to bring you over later, but I think that this might be better, we can talk without him trying to force you down my throat.”

“I told Jared that this was a bad idea. I can be gone,” he informed the man with as much pride as he could muster.  
“No-look Jensen I’m sorry,” as he stooped Jensen’s attempt to walk past him.” My choice of words were unfortunate and it was not my intention to hurt you. It’s - when Jared wants something he extolls the virtue of it in excess before I can make up my mind about it. I just meant that I’m glad that we have this time to get to know one another without the big sale.”  
“Okay,” Jensen swallowed at the lump in his throat because he really had no clue where he would have gone.  
“I think we got off to a bad start, but there are some things that I want you to understand. Jared leads with his heart, but when he asked to bring you here I didn’t hesitate because he has this incredible ability to read people and he’s never wrong.”  
“What about Chad?” Jensen mumbled.  
Gerald shrugged his shoulders and said “Everyone’s entitled to one mistake.” He squinted his eyes and asked with an intensity that Jensen found hard to bear. “You aren’t with him just because he’s the first person to be nice to you are you?”  
Shaking his head, Jensen’s simple answer of, “No,” embodied all of his feelings.  
“Good, because I don’t think that Jared has realized what this means for him. That picture of the two of you coming out of the church outed him, and in this small town, there will be repercussions no matter how much he is liked.”  
Jensen smiled and let out a silent sigh of relief.  
“You ride,” Gerald asked him nodding his head towards the horses.  
“It has been a while,” Jensen answered sheepishly.  
“Don’t worry,” the elder Padalecki responded. “It’s a bit like riding a bike, except it’s easier because all you have to do is hold on. Come meet Sadie, she’ll be a good horse to get you back into the saddle.”  
“Sadie? I thought she was a dog,” Jensen asked confused.  
“There is always a Sadie on this ranch. It was my grandmother’s name and my granddad thought that it was cute to do no matter how much it angered her, now it’s a tradition that no one wants to break.”  
He rode for an hour in the hot sun and went back to Jared's to take a shower to cool down, and actually lay down in the bed and took a nap.


	11. Chapter 11

  
The ride to work was quiet, but all Jared could think about was the fact that he had Jensen in his house. The broken man was in his house but not in his bed. Neither the one Jared was occupying nor the one Jared provided for his guest. Because he was hyper aware of Jensen he never heard Jensen come inside last night.  
He would not mention it to the older man because Jared imagines that having been locked up for so many years the freedom of being outside is like the heavens he was showing him last night.  
That the man was skittish was not a question but Jared wanted him to feel grounded and not be prepared to run at the next hint of trouble. So how do you make someone like Jensen feel wanted that didn't involve sex?  
Fuck, Jared wanted that, but he also wanted more.  
It occurred to him that the time old Texas tradition of a barbeque, here on the ranch. He mentally began to compile the short list of the people in Jensen's life and prayed like hell that they would all come. With a plan in pace Jared turned the radio up and sang along with a smile on his face.

By the middle of the week Jensen and Jared had a routine, because he had a forty-five minute drive to get Chad before driving to the jobsite, Jared was often up before the sun. Normally, he would just grab breakfast from a fast food place once he crossed over the tracks, but now Jensen fixed breakfast for him, and Jared kind of liked that.  
He liked having Jensen in his home, and doing things for him, waiting for him when he got home as though it was one of those 1950’s comedies he used to watch with his grandparents.  
That was not what he had in mind when he offered Jensen a place to stay, but he could get used to it.  
As he waited in front of the halfway house, Jared watched as the police escorted one of the habitants to a waiting patrol car in handcuffs. As he watched it he wondered what the house was supposed to be, halfway-back to jail or freedom.  
“Let’s go,” Chad said as he jumped into the cab of the truck. “I want to get out of here before they start adding points for just breathing and haul my ass back to jail.”  
Jared looked at his friend and thought that knowing Chad and his natural ability to be an asshole, he could garner points on his own without them having to be manufactured against him.  
“Fuck!” Jared cursed as he pulled away from the curb and realized that both the legitimate reporters and paparazzi that had gotten tired of waiting outside of his parent’s ranch were now following him to the jobsite.  
“Things have been crazy since Jensen bit off Sterling’s dick, Chad chuckled. “It’s all good though because I got rid of both pains in my asses at the same time.”  
They were going to have to talk.  
There was something between Chad and Jensen it was so tangible that Jared could almost feel it. The problem was that Jared was not sure what that was. He wanted to have this discussion with Jensen first because he believed that no matter how brutal, Jensen would tell the truth.  
After the interviews with Anderson Cooper and the follow-up appearance on a crow eating Nancy Grace, Jared knew that Chad’s stories about Jensen being a slut was so far from the truth, so right now he didn’t want to discuss Jensen with Chad.  
“Hey, that’s sweet!” Chad exclaimed as he spotted a Corvair with a for sale sign on it. It had seen better days but with a little work, she’d be a beauty. He turned his pleading eyes on Jared and before he knew it they were parked in front of the house at this ungodly time of the morning inquiring about the car.  
The lady who answered was not what Jared expected; she had a roadmap of wrinkles on her face that were a testament to years of hard work under the brutal Texas sun.  
There was an unlit, unfiltered cigarette dangling from her mouth and she tighten her tattered old robe to her as she opened the door to the cool morning air.  
It turned out that the car belonged to her son who was MIA in the Vietnam War.  
“He never got to drive it, and I kept it in hopes that he would come home,” she explained in the cigarette roughened voice. “It’s taken a while, but I realize that he’s not coming back so it’s time to let it go.”  
They made arrangements to come back this evening to go over payment, and a promise that she wouldn’t sell until she talked to them again. Jared gave her his card and promised to talk to her later. If he had to help then he would because not have to get Chad in the morning meant more time with Jensen.  
When they pulled onto the job site, Jared was greeted by Henry, so he waved Chad on as he talked to the older man.  
“How’s Jensen?” The man asked without preamble. “I’ve tried to call him but he doesn’t answer and I’m worried.”  
“He’s fine, Henry. Or rather as fine as he can be under the circumstances.”  
“When is he coming back to work? We miss him here.”  
Jared smiled at the be-speckled man’s question. “He thought that he no longer had a job, that you didn’t want him here.”  
“He’s wanted,” Henry assured him.  
“Look, I’m going to have a barbeque for him, perhaps you can come and talk to him, because I’m not sure that you’ll get to talk to him otherwise.”  
The two men made arrangements for Henry to come to the ranch and Jared went to the job site.  
When he walked to the back of the building, he found his men, or rather those who had bothered to show up staring at the building that they had worked on. Someone had sprayed graffiti on the side of the building that read homo.  
“What are y’all waiting on to start working?” Jared asked the small crew who were staring at some coward’s handiwork. “If any of you don’t want to work for me any longer, then let me know now. If you’re not going to leave then get to work.”  
That was all he did to address the slur. They only had a few more days on this job, but he might have to speed up the progress.  
The job ended three days later, but so did the one he had lined up after it. He didn’t worry until he started losing work to companies that he underbid. It seems that the good people of Bennettesville would rather pay more money for shoddy work than to have the gay man work for them.  
There were some who didn’t know or care so he picked up a lot of smaller jobs that kept him and his crew going. The work was honest, but it felt like all the hard work he put into Padalecki Contractors was for nothing because he was back to building backyard decks and patch jobs.  
By the end of the week Jared was frustrated with the people of this town as well as the circumstances.  
The barbeque was planned at the main house, so Jared sat in the kitchen and watched Jensen as he nervously prepared a potato salad for the guests.  
“Why are you so worried,” he asked.  
“I - who’s coming again?” Jensen licked his lips in a nervous manner that drove Jared crazy.  
Placing his beer on the table, Jared stood and walked up behind Jensen and carefully placed his hand on the man’s shoulder. He steeled himself from reacting when Jensen jumped at the touch.  
“It’s okay, Jen,” he whispered into the freckled ear while pulling Jensen into his body. “The only people coming are your friends. People who care for you.”  
“I don’t think you get how hard it is for me to understand that people care; that I can call friend. In a way it’s no surprise that my own mother hates me. I had it either beaten or fucked into me that I wasn’t worth the space I was taking up.”  
Tilting his head back so he could blink back the tears, Jared told him, “People care so fucking much, but you're hurt too much right now to see past the pain, but we’ll get there.”  
“My optimist,” Jensen laughed nervously.  
“Yeah, yours,” Jared agreed and lean forward and kissed Jensen’s cheek and when Jensen leaned into it Jared felt that all was right with the world.  
For a moment they were a normal loving couple.  
“Okay, no making out in my kitchen, save that for your own home,” Gerald Padalecki teased from the doorway.  
“Don’t be jealous dad because I have the prettiest girl here,” Jared teased back as he held Jensen in place when he tried to move when the elder Padalecki entered the kitchen.  
“With that hair it’s you who would be mistaken for a girl,” his father told him. “Jensen do you think that you could make him get a haircut?”  
“Kinda like his hair,” Jensen mumbled and then blushed so hard that the back of his neck was red.  
Yeah, normal.  
Everyone whom Jared invited except Josh, Mackenzie and Alan Ackles came and Jared was disappointed by their no show, but ecstatic that everyone else came to support Jensen. Even Chris flew in and because he was on tour that was a major feat.  
Watching Chris as he worked the patio, Jared wondered if Danni was part of the reason the singer came. He didn’t doubt that Chris was there to support his friend, but Danni was a big draw as well.  
The smirk on Gen’s face told him she thought the same.  
After a couple of Shiner Bocks, Jensen was the most relaxed that Jared had ever seen him. Even his grandma’s roses hadn’t done this. He wasn’t drunk, he would never lose control like that, but he was slightly buzzed. He was so buzzed that when Chris started playing, Jensen actually sang along.  
The singing voice was a little rusty from him not singing for years, but it was nice and soothing, and a quick glance at the people gathered there told Jared that he wasn’t the only one impressed or enjoying it.  
“Hey, Jensen, remember when we wrote this?” Chris asked as he began to sing the song that had been his first hit.  
Wrote? Jensen wrote songs. There was so goddam much that has been taken from this wonderful man and suddenly Jared was angry on his behalf.  
Jensen seemed to sense the change in the big man and his voice waivered mid key, but Jared forced a fake smile so that Jensen wouldn’t worry.  
“Well, when I started recording, I was so sure that you were going to be freed and we could take on the world with our music, but… well. Anyway, I still had the music published in both of our names, so on Monday we’ll meet with an attorney to have everything set up nice and legal.”  
“What… what are you saying Chris?” Jensen asked carefully.  
“I’m saying that even though Jeff is going to sue the hell out of the state of Texas, but even if he didn’t win, you wouldn’t have to work if you didn’t want to.”  
“Well, I guess that trumps my offer of his old job,” Henry laughed.  
Jared watched the myriad of expressions play across Jensen’s face wanting to allow him to handle this on his own, but when the tears began to flow, Jared rushed to his side.  
He’s sure that this is not the first time that Jensen has cried through this hell, but it is the first time that he has witnessed it and it broke his heart until he realized that Jensen was smiling. As he reached Jensen, Jared glommed him from behind and ground his chin on Jensen’s shoulder.

“Get offa me you big oaf,” Jensen teased as he pushed Jared away making the group laugh.  
“Sorry that we’re late,” a familiar voice cut through the laughter.  
Turning around, Jared came face to face with the Ackles. Even Jensen’s grandmother had come to see him.  
“Nana,” Jensen breathed at the sight of his family and this time Jensen was crying for a different reason.  
Everyone froze at the sight of the Ackles. With the exception of Jensen’s grandmother who immediately went to hug her grandson, the rest held back unsure of their reception.  
“We got lost,” Nana Ackles explained as she embraced her grandson. “Even if there had been someone to ask out here, these two were not going to ask. We had to go by that scary looking tree three times before they would even look at their GPS.  
Jared took in the sheepish looks on Alan and Josh’s face and knew that the woman was telling the truth and he smiled. It was a full smile that brought out his dimples and turned into a laugh because they didn’t stand Jensen up when it would have been so easy to give up in frustration.  
“Getting lost works up a thirst, how ‘bout a beer?” Jared asked the men, “and some sweet tea for the ladies. The food is almost ready.”  
“Sure,” they all agreed.  
“Jensen did I hear you singing?” Josh asked his brother.  
“Yeah, Chris and I were,” he shrugged his shoulders as though it was no big deal.  
“I remember when dad was teaching you to play,” Alan mused. “Um, I still have dad’s guitar. If you want it…”  
“I’d like that.”  
That’s when he knew that Jensen and his family were going to be okay. Their relationship wasn’t going to heal overnight, but it would heal and that was the most important thing.  
“Steaks are ready,” Gerald Padalecki announced breaking up the emotional moment. At the mention of food, Jared was first in line, but his father pushed him out of the way and beckoned Jensen forward. “Sorry kid, but guest of honor gets served first.” 

For the first time in seven years, Jensen Ackles was content. Despite what Mr. Eternal Sunshine told him, happiness was something that wasn’t meant for him. He’d been happy for the first sixteen years of his life but it seemed that it had all been a lie, so content was good.  
“What cha’ thinking about Ackles?” Gen asked.  
“Nothing special, just that for once I’m okay with being me.”  
“That’s good, but it’s not okay to be your friend right now. Don’t take that the wrong way, it’s just that the police are mad because they can’t touch you so they’re coming after us.”  
“Geez, I’m sorry. What for, Gen?”  
“Same old shit. Danni and I are no longer on parole, thank god, or we would have been in jail a long time ago. It’s just that when the cops see us talking to a man they try to arrest us. We’re out of that business. But...” She shrugged her shoulders.  
“So what are you going to do? Right now the media and the Rangers are still here, but they won’t be here forever.”  
“Amarillo by Morning,” she joked making a play on the old George Strait song, “then down to San Antone. From there Austin. Chris and Danni talk often and he’s there so we thought why not. We can’t stay here and to be honest you should think about leaving as well. You have to realize that there’s nothing for you here Jensen.”  
Looking across the patio at Jared, he wasn’t so sure.  
“He’ll do what’s best for you,” she said softly.  
It was late when everyone left, but Gen’s words kept nagging at him. Jared was always saying that they needed to talk, for once Jensen agreed.  
He and Jared walked from the main house back to Jared’s place in silence, because both men had something on their mind. Usually the pair would sit in the garden and look at the constellations, but not tonight. Jensen went into his bedroom and Jared followed.  
“Tell me Jensen, tell me all of it. Don’t try to spare my feelings by bottling all of that shit up inside.”  
“Jared, please,” Jensen begged as he felt himself wavering. He knew he should have just stuck to the one beer, but Jared kept giving him more. Had that been his plan all along?  
One look in Jared’s eyes told him that he was not going to give in, so he talked. Not wanting to do this standing up when he was unsteady on his feet, Jensen was going to the chair on the other side of the room, but Jared patted the bed beside him, and Jensen sat there.  
He told him all of the parts that he’d left out at his mom’s and on the shows he’d guested on. He told him about the guards, about Sterling, about the bus ride back, but most important, he told him about Chad.  
Once he finished his story, it was Jared crying this time.  
Jensen moved them to lay down on the huge bed as they both struggled with the horror Jensen had revealed. For the first time, Jensen was the one reaching out. Offering comfort by taking Jared in his arms and hold him as he digested everything. Jensen also knew that the man was trying to decide whether or not Chad was still his friend and he wasn’t going to try to influence Jared’s decision so instead of talking he closed his eyes and sang softly to the big man and the next thing he knew the sun was coming up.  
Jared was gone when Jensen woke the next morning, so he padded down the hall to his room, but he was not there either. After searching the house it was clear that Jared was not there causing Jensen to panic, wondering if he revealed too much.  
Then his phone chirped letting Jensen know that he had a text. When he saw Jared’s name he smiled.  
_I know ur freaking out, I just have some errands to run, and I’ll be back soon._  
_I’m not freaking out-okay maybe a little_.  
Even though he told Jared that he wasn’t, he didn’t think that he would stop the freak out until Jared was back.  
_I should have woke you b4 I lft but u looked so peaceful. Next time I will._  
_I’m okay, Jared really._  
_No ur not, but I love you and I’m coming back 2 u_.  
Love. Jared loved him. Jensen never thought about what Jared felt for him. Pity maybe, lust for sure, but it never occurred to him that the man loved him.  
_Jensen?_  
He couldn’t answer, he sat mulling over what Jared meant by love. Did he mean ‘till death do us part love, or like Chad - a good friend. He wasn’t sure and then a breeze blew and the scent of Jared’s grandmother’s roses hit his nose and he knew. It was a ‘till death do us part.  
Jared had brought him to his home, introduced him to his family and shared his grandmother's roses and his grandfather's stars. He wasn’t sure what he had to offer in return, but he was willing to try, but he wasn’t sure if they could do it here.  
Even though he’s tried to hide it, he’d heard Jared talking to his dad about his business, about how he’s losing business because of his orientation as well as being associated with Jensen. If they moved to Austin then they both could start over but it shouldn’t be a hardship.  
Between the money he was getting from Chris and what he was going to get from the state, they would be okay. Maybe he could take some horticulture classes and he could landscape the places Jared built.  
They would be equals then.  
It could work, but he had to figure out how to get Jared to agree.

 

Jensen was sitting in the garden enjoying his second cup of coffee when he noticed an old car pull up into the driveway. At first he thought that it was a reporter but from the way the driver easily found the garden in the back told him that this person was familiar with the property. Chad, and from the angry look on his face, he knew that this was not going to be good.  
Jared wasn’t here and the fact that Chad worked for the other man, Jensen knew that he was aware of this, so that meant that he came specifically to see Jensen.  
Just as he wouldn’t discuss what happened in prison with Jared, he wasn’t going to discuss whatever it was that Chad wanted to discuss out here either, so as the blonde stormed towards him, Jensen went inside sure that he was going to be followed.  
“Where’s Jared?” the blonde demanded as he stood in front of Jensen who was now pouring himself another cup of coffee to calm his nerves.  
Taking a sip before he answered, Jensen reminded him, “I’m not his secretary, and you’re the one who works for him so you should know his whereabouts.”

 

“I told you that Jared was mine,” he shouted as he pointed to himself and reiterated, “Mine!”  
The man was trembling and the hatred in his voice suddenly made Jensen aware of his surroundings and the fact that Chad had him in a corner, the counter pressed up against his back as Chad stood directly in front of him.  
“I have no control over who Jared has as a friend. As much as I’d like to, I am not stopping Jared from being your friend,” then he hesitated, cocked his head and asked, “or do you want him to be more?”  
Turning red in the face, Chad drew himself up to make himself taller and yelled, “I’m not some dirty fag like you, and Jared is my friend. My best and only but you had to go and destroy that didn’t you?”  
“If being gay makes me so dirty, then why do you want Jared in your life? I mean he’s a dirty fag too.”  
Without warning, Chad began to cry.  
He moved away from Jensen and began crying so hard that his body was convulsing with the big wracking sobs, and Jensen almost felt sorry for him. Almost.  
“You told him,” he accused through the tears. “You told him about prison.”  
“Told him what Chad?” Jensen demanded, the feeling of sympathy leaving him. “Told him about how you raped me? You spent all of your time lying, telling him what a slut I was that you forgot to tell him that you’d paid to sample the goods, huh?”  
Chad let out another sob and Jensen asked disbelievingly, “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? I remember begging you not to touch me, but you just laughed. Why aren’t you laughing now?”  
“It’s all your fault. When they couldn’t use you; when you had to spend time in the infirmary, they used me as a substitute and fucked me in your place. They took enjoyment in telling me that, so yeah. I had to get you back for making me their fuck-toy.”

“Then why didn’t you take that out on them instead of me! You fucking knew that I had no choice, that between Sterling and Kripke, I was sold on a regular basis.”  
“I - I was scared, Jensen. I fought them. But you never did, you just lay there like it would be over soon, so I guess I convinced myself that you liked it. It was easier to think that than deal.”  
“I did fight, why do you think I was in the infirmary? I stopped fighting because it was easier, it hurt less than the beatings that I would get.”  
“I didn’t know. I - I just wanted them to leave me alone, and if I… hurt you, then I was on their side and they wouldn’t bother me so often. Don’t take Jared from me,” Chad pleaded.  
“I am not… even if I wanted too, I don’t have that kind of influence over him.”  
“You’re sleeping in his home, in his bed, so I’m going to disagree.” Chad laughed. “That’s a lot of influence. He put you in his bed. I helped him restore this place. He would leave the job site and then come here and work all night.”  
He stopped and looked towards the hallway to the bedrooms. “He left that one last because he had to find pictures to restore it the way his great grandmother had it, so don’t tell me you have no influence over him.”  
When Jensen said nothing Chad whispered, “He won’t talk to me, so if you want me to beg then I’ll beg. Even after everyone else abandoned me, Jared stuck by me. When you told him everything, he… please Jensen you can make him listen.”  
Chad’s begging had the reverse effect on Jensen, and instead of reaching the soft spot in his heart, it bounced of the hard shell that surrounded it.  
“You know what Chad, I’m not so convinced that I can make Jared forgive you, but even if I did, I wouldn’t even try. You’ve mocked me and placed me in danger since the day I met you, but this isn’t about me or you for that matter, it’s about Jared. If you want him to forgive you then goddamn it earn it! Maybe then you’ll appreciate it if you get it back.”  
“You stuck up little bitch,” Chad sneered. “You feel so important don’t you, but you need to remember that all you’ll ever be is Sterling’s little whore. But that’s okay, I don’t need you. I’ll get Jared back on my own.”  
The slamming of the door as Chad left startled him a little. He didn’t think that Jared and Chad were going to be friends again, but with telling the blonde to earn Jared’s friendship back, he gave Chad something no one had ever given him, hope.  
It was late afternoon when Jared returned. When Jensen heard the F150 pull into the driveway, Jensen grabbed a beer and greeted Jared at the door. He had a smile on his face, and Jensen thought he’d never seen anything more beautiful than Jared Padalecki.  
Taking the cold beer from Jensen, Jared cocked his head and looked at Jensen as though he was searching for something.  
“You okay,” he finally asked.  
“I’m good,” Jensen responded with a smile and realized for the first time that he really was, and it had everything to do with the man standing in front of him. There was still a battle ahead of them but he now had more people in the trenches with him.  
“Are you hungry?” Jensen asked. “I can make you a sandwich if you like.”  
The request elicited a smile so big he wondered if Jared’s muscles hurt.  
“No, I grabbed a bite while I was in town. I do need a nap though because morning came too early after our late night.”  
Jensen was enthralled as he watched Jared’s Adam’s apple bob up and down as he polished off his beer. It made him want. His dick began to thicken and fill and suddenly he was more aware of Jared than he ever had been before. He noticed the thick corded muscles of his arms. He knew that their definition came from working not in a gym, just as he knew the golden skin was from hours working and not from a tanning bed. All of it made him want but he wasn’t sure if he was ready.  
As he tore his eyes away from Jared’s throat, he saw Jared look at his with a question in his eyes before he walked past Jensen and placed the empty bottle in the recycle bin. He again walked past Jensen but instead of walking down the hall, he reached out his hand to Jensen.  
He knew what Jared saw in his eyes, but he couldn’t. Not yet.  
“It’s just sleep, Jensen. Anything more than that will be up to you.”  
Nodding his head, Jensen took the offered hand and let Jared lead him down the hall. When Jared stopped at the first door, Jensen looked at the smaller bed and wondered how such a big man slept there comfortably.  
If he had been paying more attention, he would have noticed the size of the bed and how impersonal the room was. It was nice, but all of the touches that personalize a space was in the room where Jensen slept.  
“Why did you give me your room?”  
“It just seemed like the right thing to do. You had just had an emotional upheaval with your mom - Colin just everything, and my room gave you access to the garden. I wanted to give you something beautiful.”  
“You did,” Jensen assured him. “Now let’s go where you can really get some rest.”  
This time it was Jensen in the lead as they walked the few feet to the master suite.  
“What made you realize this was my room?” Jared asked as he untied his heavy work boots.  
“Chad.”  
“Chad?”  
“Yeah, he came here today…”  
“That fucker! I told him to give me time, but he had to come and fuck with you.”  
“I’m okay, Jay, really, I am. He just seemed to think that I have more influence over you than I do.”  
“He understands what you don’t Jensen. I want you to be my everything; that’s why he tried so fucking hard to keep us apart. I know that’s more than you can handle right now, but I can wait, be Job like.”  
“I know that Chad’s an incarnation of the devil, but I’m hardly a god.”  
“But I still want to worship you.”  
“How cheesy was that Jared?” Jensen laughed. With lines like that it’s no wonder you’re still single.”  
Instead of an answer, Jared yawned.  
“What did you do to make you so tired?”  
Jared remained silent, making Jensen worry.  
“I can hear your mind going a million miles an hour,” Jared said. “It’s nothing bad, well at least I hope you don’t think it’s bad.”  
“What did you do?” Jensen asked haltingly.  
With a deep exhale, he confessed, “I bought Chad a car and sold my business.”  
“You bought Chad a car?”  
“That’s what you got out of all of that? Things are going downhill, and I don’t really know if they are going to pick up. Even after all of this dies down, I’m still going to be gay in a small backwater town. Everyone in this town is patriotic, they believe that I have the right to be gay and then they have the right to kick my ass for being gay. I can’t stay Jen.”  
“Why would you do that Jared, I mean your family’s here.”  
“So’s yours. If I had told you about it beforehand then you would have tried to stop me. This a way for us to start over, reinvent ourselves. Silas Gardner has been after me to sell for a couple of years now, because I was taking business. I just took the man up on his offer while there was still something to salvage.”  
“Is the car for Chad to come visit?” Jensen asked cautiously, steeling himself for an affirmative answer.  
“No. He’s going to move from the halfway house soon and even though it wasn’t overly expensive, it’s more than Chad can afford. Having the car will give him a chance. I couldn’t not help him. Despite what he did, he is - was a good friend and kept secrets that would have gotten me hurt. I owe him that at least.”  
When Jared rolled over to his side and pulled Jensen to him, Jensen couldn’t help but stiffen.  
“It’s okay, it’s just me,” Jared reassured him.  
Eventually Jensen let himself relax and fall asleep.  
When he woke Jensen still felt the same disorientation as yesterday because he was not used to sleeping in the bed, but today he felt comfortable and really wanted to sink back into the warmness and go back to sleep.  
His eyes were halfway closed when he realized what that warmth was. Jared.

He tried to gently extract himself from the arm wrapped around his waist, but Jared snuffled in his sleep and pulled Jensen closer. As he lay there aware of every inch of Jared’s body (because it all seemed to be touching him) Jensen stiffened, because he was scared and curious.  
He wanted to know what it was like to freely touch someone and have someone treat him with love and kindness instead of just a hole to fuck.  
Jared’s hands went from soft caresses to gently nudging Jensen to turn to face him.  
“I want to make sure that you know who’s touching you,” he explained.  
Jensen wanted to deny that he could become confused, but that would be a lie. If he closed his eyes and heard Jared’s harsh breathing he could be taken to the dark corners of the prison. The biggest difference was that if he opened his eyes, he would see Jared, he would see love.  
Despite what he said, Jared didn’t touch Jensen, he lay back and let the trembling man touch him.  
Jensen watched as his unsteady hand made his way to Jared’s face. He traced the cheekbones, the strong chin and felt the roughness of the five o’clock shadow. He outlined the thin lips and gasped when Jared sucked one of Jensen’s fingers into his mouth.  
At the feeling of that wet warmth his dick began to take notice and began to thicken as though to say it wanted the warmth of that mouth surrounding it. Jensen wanted that desperately, but he wasn’t sure how to ask for that so he kept his hands moving.  
They moved from Jared’s face down to his chest, where Jensen tried to continue his exploration, but the cotton t-shirt was an annoying barrier.  
“Off,” he husked and Jared chuckled as he quickly removed the offending garment.  
Now it was his turn to position Jared, and he nudged the big man until he was lying flat on his back and Jensen startled them both by straddling Jared’s hips.  
Jensen hadn’t counted on the contact, their cocks rubbing together and the pleasure at the contact. Closing his eyes, he shifted his hips a little, threw his head back and let the spark of pleasure shoot through his body.  
“God, Jen are you trying to kill me?” Jared moaned.  
“Not yet,” he laughed.  
Not wanting this to be over, this time the shift of his hips removed the cock to cock contact, but Jensen was hard and throbbing in his boxers, so he took in a deep breath and continued his exploration of the toned and taunt body that was laid out beneath him.  
He let his fingers trace the muscles of Jared’s collarbone, and unable to resist, he leaned forward and placed a kiss there. The muscles were firm, but the skin was soft under his lips.  
Because Jared didn’t push him away after that kiss he became bolder, and began to place kisses along Jared’s neck and even took a nip at the soft flesh at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. Through his clumsy ministrations, Jared didn’t move, and let Jensen map out his big body. He was so still that had it not been for the occasional grunt or groan, Jensen would have questioned if Jared was enjoying this.  
Encouraged Jensen moved his mouth down until he came to Jared’s nipples and at first contact Jensen learned how sensitive they were, because although Jared fought to continue to keep his body still, when Jensen suckled the nubbin, a shiver of pleasure shook Jared’s body.  
Jensen took delight in torturing the nubs, loving that when he put his mouth on one the other pebbled up as well.  
Emboldened by the carte blanche that Jared is allowing, Jensen lightly teases a nipple as he rubs their cocks together again.  
“Oh, God,” Jensen breathes out as he fights his body’s reaction to the stimulation. Bracing himself on one hand he takes the other and grinds the heel of his hand on his dick to stop himself from coming.  
He’s not the only one fighting. Jared takes his hands and places them on Jensen’s hip to anchor him there, “Please Jen…” he begs.  
Suddenly Jensen felt powerful and for once in his life in control. Jared could take control of the situation, but he doesn’t, he leaves his pleasure in Jensen’s hands and it's heady stuff.  
To be wanted.  
To be loved.  
Leaning forward, Jensen aligns them and begins to give Jared the friction that he is begging for. It doesn’t take long, just a few thrusts and Jared comes first with Jensen calling out the other man’s name as he free-falls heart first into orgasm.

When Jensen woke from his nap with Jared he felt like a different person, free. He didn’t feel nervous or scared when Jared touched him and he even touched the tall man of his own accord. He knew that this wasn’t the end of his nightmares, but it was the beginning of a new life for him.

 

After they prepared dinner the pair went for an evening ride. The afternoon he spent with Jared made him feel relaxed and happy. He should have known that it couldn’t last. As they were preparing for bed, Jensen received a call. He frowned when he saw that the caller ID showed his sister’s name.  
“Hi, Mack,” he answered hesitantly.  
“Colin wants to see you.”

Jensen stared at the house that Jared had pulled up to. It was similar to the one that he had grown up in, only a little smaller and a couple of houses from the one he did grow up in. Juliana Ford made a good living at the insurance company where she worked and as a single mother her children wanted for nothing.  
The small town had talked about her fortitude as she took care of her young family after her husband had been killed in a hunting accident. They were proud of her and she was hailed an example of good southern genes, and then Colin was attacked. Suddenly she was the part time mother who wasn’t taking care of her family. Had she been at home and let a man take care of her, none of this would have happened.  
Thank god for Jensen because now she retained her good graces in the town, and she’s a good southern belle again. As she looked out the window at Jensen, she was thinking that after the dust settles and word got out that Jensen and Colin talked, that she keeps her title again.  
If they were in a larger town, Amarillo even, it wouldn’t matter as much, but here you lived and died by your reputation.  
Jensen felt the same foreboding he'd felt when Jeff had taken him to his parents’ home. Well this time he had nothing to lose, but he had to do this, to talk to Colin to gain closure. If he didn’t, this chance might never come again because there was no way save a funeral or the trials, he was ever returning to Bennettesville.  
"The longer you put it off, the worse it's going to be."  
Didn’t Jeff say something similar to him at his parents?  
Jensen knocked three times before Juliana answered the door making him wait as though he hadn’t noticed her looking out the window. When she finally answered the knock, Juliana stepped outside instead of letting him inside.  
“Colin is waiting in the back to talk to you, but I just want to know that I will not have you upset my child. Because Donna didn't care doesn't meant that I don't care about my child,” she said spitefully.  
Jensen ignored the dig and continued, "I can't promise you what's going to happen in this conversation, but it's one that Colin and I need to have. Colin could have stopped this and I want to know why. I don’t believe that it was because of his age, I think that there’s more to the story than he’s letting on, and I want the truth. If this is not the conversation that you want me to have with him, then I'll leave, but if I stay there will be no conditions on what we discuss,” Jensen advised her as he stepped back to get a better look at the woman. He knew what her answer would be so he prepared to leave.  
“It’s okay mom,” Colin’s surprisingly deep voice said from the gate to the left of the house. I need to get this off my chest as well. He deserves to know.”  
“Colin,” Juliana pleaded to her son. “You don’t have to talk to him.”  
“It’s okay, mom. I need this as much Jensen. Alone, mom,” he stated firmly as Juliana made to follow them.  
Following Colin through the gate to the backyard, Jensen threw a glance to where Jared waited for him on the curb.  
Once through the gate Jensen sat in a chair across from Colin with a table separating them. The weather was hot and there was a pitcher of lemonade of which he offered a glass to Jensen.  
Jensen took the glass in order to have something to do with his hands.  
“Your mom loves you,” was Colin’s unexpected first words.  
Of all the things that he wanted to talk to the teen about, Donna Ackles was not one of them.  
“Surely you don't expect me to believe that Donna Ackles loves her faggot son. She replaced me with you so it makes sense that you’d defend her.  
“I get that you don't believe me, but she does love you and I was not a replacement, she was trying to protect me but she got in over her head and inadvertently hurt you.  
“Protect me from what, going to jail or being raped? It really doesn’t matter because either way she didn't do a good job. She kept you protected so I guess you can afford to be a little more generous than I.”  
”They were going to hand me over to him,” Colin blurted out. “Sheppard and Roché were just going to let him have me, but your mom stepped in. Mrs. Ackles made them stop. She had to sacrifice you to save me. I'm sorry and you have every right to be angry, but I will never forget what she's done for me.”  
“Am I supposed to be happy for you? Your mom would have fought tooth and nail for you and all you had to do was tell her the truth. But you didn’t. From what you’re telling me is that my mother knew and she still didn’t go to the authorities, just left me there to rot. For that I'll never forgive either of you. What did Mr. Beaver have on them that they let him get away with this shit?”  
“Drugs,” Colin shrugged his shoulders. “They were dealing in the school and Jim caught them, have them on film somewhere. According to my attorney he's using it to get a lighter sentence.”  
Jensen noticed that Colin called the man Jim while he called him Mr. Beaver if deference to him having been his teacher. I guess when someone fucked you and left you for dead, you earned being on a first name basis.

“My life was a fair trade for drugs.” He wondered if he contributed to their enterprise because he and Chris had often gotten high behind the gym. He never asked his friend where he got the pot, but now he knows. “High schoolers paying pennies for grass so they weren’t making a lot.”  
“You forget you weren't the only one hurt.” Colin snapped. “It wasn’t just the one time, but it was the last. I fought and he became angry that I was protesting and, well you know the rest.”  
“No - no I haven't because I was never allowed to forget it. I also know that there were other children. Especially Alona Tal's kid. But everyone knew about you, so got to work on you pain, given the opportunity to recover and the rest of us weren’t. All you had to do was tell someone. Perhaps it’s petty, but that's what I can't get past.”  
“I - I feel responsible for Kevin Tal, so I really don’t need you to make me feel even worse. I'm so fucking sorry Jensen, but I did the best I could to get through this.”  
“I know that in my heart I do, but it doesn't make it any easier to forgive you. It will take some time but don’t expect miracles.”  
Colin nodded his agreement.  
Jensen stood up to leave and he saw Juliana nervously hovering at the door ready to rush out to Colin’s defense. That was just another reason he hated the kid and that was something he was going to have to work on.  
Just as he reached the gate Colin stopped him by calling his name.  
“Jensen, I have nightmares too.”  
There was no response to that because he understood the power of nightmares. Once he reached the truck. He jumped in and demanded Jared to drive. He needed to get away from Colin because he didn’t want to feel sympathy for the teen.  
“Are we making a getaway,” Jared attempted to lighten the mood. But Jensen gave no response.  
“I’m a terrible person,” Jensen mumbled halfway back to the ranch. “I shouldn’t hate that kid, and part of me doesn’t but I just…”  
Jared remained quiet and Jensen watched the trees as they sped by, now worried if Jared was trying to find a way to dump him when he spoke.  
“You’re human, Jensen,” Jared said simply as though that explained everything. Perhaps it did but all Jensen felt was petty, not the relief he’d expected after talking to Colin  
“Jared, I know what he went through, they made me look at the pictures, so how can you forgive me for hating this kid?”  
“I didn’t say I forgave you, but I understand your reasoning. It’s going to take some work for you to come to terms with what has happened to you and Colin. He understands that, but he’s angry too. I also want you to think about something. Remember what you were like at that age, when your biggest worry was your friends and school. That kid looks as though he’s carrying the weight of the world, so he didn’t get out of this scot-free.”  
Jensen knew that Colin didn’t get away unharmed. The police had forced him to look at the pictures during the trial, but sometime between his assaults and his release, he forgot that. Jensen had built up so much hope that each day he woke up thinking that today would be the day that Colin told them the truth.  
Because that day never came, Colin went from being a victim to an enemy and now Jensen is having trouble separating the two.

It was four weeks before they made it to Austin. They wanted to tie up all of their loose ends so there’d be no reason to bring them back. The holdup was Silas Gardner. At the last moment he decided that because Jared’s business had been falling off that he should get it for less.  
If he needed to Jared could have transferred the business to Austin, the problem was he didn’t want to deal with transferring the equipment to Austin and dealing with the red tape, and that included the hassle of finding a building to house the equipment and business.  
In the end he settled with the man for less than they had originally agreed on, but far more than Silas wanted to pay.  
Since they agreed to open the new business together, Jared and Jensen had spent hours talking about their business model, their other partnership. It would be that, a partnership - Jared would do the building and contracting, while Jensen would handle all landscaping.  
He wouldn’t handle the bigger jobs until he got a better understanding of plants and soil and that wouldn’t happen until he completed his horticulture classes at Austin Community College. As he studied the handbook, he noticed that they had a class in astronomy, and Jensen decided to add it to his course load. That way he could show Jared some new star groupings.  
The ride to Austin was comfortable in the luxurious cab of Jared’s King Ranch F150. Jensen teased him that the truck was too expensive for two bums just starting out. The closer they got to Austin, the better Jensen felt. It was as though the chains of his old life were being shed the further away he was from Bennettesville.  
Halfway between Amarillo and Austin, Jensen fell asleep, only to be awakened by the buzzing of his cell. He answered without looking at the caller ID because he was sure that it was either Gen, Danni or Chris wanting to know how close they were, so the recording he heard shocked him.  
You are receiving a call from Donna Ackles, a prisoner incarcerated in The Texas Prison system. If you will accept the call press 1 if not then hang up.  
Jensen hung up.  
He’s not sure how she got his number; probably Mack or Colin, but it didn’t matter he did not want to talk to her.  
“Gen, Danni or Chris?” Jared asked.  
“Neither, wrong number,” Jensen answered before closing his eyes and slept nightmare free all the way to Austin.


End file.
